


Not Another Ghost Story

by sunshineoptimismandangels



Category: Glee, klaine - Fandom
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Romance, ghost - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-05-01 17:43:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14525883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshineoptimismandangels/pseuds/sunshineoptimismandangels
Summary: When Kurt Hummel began an online ghost investigation show with his best friend and his step-brother he never expected to find himself alone in an abandoned and reportedly haunted hotel, but one stormy night Kurt finds more than he ever expected in the derelict and chilling Whispering Wolf Hotel. In fact, Kurt may have found exactly what he’s has been looking for. A story of romance, comedy, and sinister plots.





	1. Whispering Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: I named this "Not Another Ghost Story" because anyone who has read any of my other stories knows I like to write about magic, and ghosts, and otherworldly tales. This story isn't that… not exactly at least.
> 
> PS  
> This is unbeta-ed at this time. Sorry about that.

 

Parked in front of a timeworn and abandoned roadside hotel the pale blue pickup truck looked out of place; the only sign of life for miles and huddled under the flickering light of the lone street lamp as if it was seeking warmth against the howling wind outside. Years ago, the  _Whispering Wolf Hotel_  was a bustling high-end establishment, wealthy guest, important businessmen, and fashionable ladies stayed here. It was gorgeous, elite and pricey… and then the interstate was built a few miles west of the hotel. The whole landscape of the area changed as traffic was diverted elsewhere and slowly, in time, no one came to the  _Whispering Wolf_  anymore

Of course, that was why Kurt Hummel was here. Hunched down in the front seat of the blue pickup and grumbling under his breath as the wind beat into the side of the truck. Kurt glared at the text message that'd just came in from his supposed "best friend".

_We're on our way! Set up without us. Be there soon._

"Damn it, Rachel!" Kurt growled glancing outside at the hotel. To say the hotel had seen better days was an understatement. Most of the windows were busted out, the paint on the siding had long faded away, and the roof sagged causing Kurt to worry about the safety of the entire structure. Watching the building it almost seemed to sway with the harsh wind and Kurt wondered even if his friends got here soon if it was safe to go poking around a building that looked like it could collapse as easily as a house of cards.  
  
He had certainly never planned on going into this deserted and decaying building _alone_ . Kurt's long-time friend Rachel and her boyfriend, Kurt's stepbrother Finn, were supposed to be here with him. Then Rachel got held up at her day job and Finn said he'd pick her up and bring her when she was done. They asked Kurt to pack the equipment and head out there himself, Rachel swearing they'd be right behind him.  
  
Now it was nearing nine o'clock, the sun had set, and Kurt was left outside a creepy old hotel by himself while the wind wailed and the damn street lamp flickered as if it was a dying soul about to be snuffed out. To top it all off, if the rumbling in the air and the heavy clouds above were any indication it was about to start pouring down rain.

Kurt wasn't a naturally fearful person. In fact, out of the three-person  _Ghost Investigators_ team, Kurt was typically the unflappable one, but here alone, looking out at the looming and decrepit  _Whispering Wolf_ (and who named a hotel something so menacing anyway?) Kurt felt a bit apprehensive… and  _very_  frustrated.

 _You owe me big after this._ Kurt texted Rachel back.  _And you better actually be driving here on your way, not I'm thinking about getting to the car soon on your way._

Kurt slipped his phone into his back pocket before Rachel had a chance to answer and hopped out of the truck before he could change his mind. At least he could get inside and set up before the rain started. He was having a particularly good hair day and there was no point in messing that up by getting caught in a downpour. Especially when he was about to be in front of the camera.

Kurt lifted the cover off the bed of the truck and started taking out what he needed. A generator and a couple collapsible set lights. He would grab the big camera if Rachel and Finn were here, but without them Kurt would probably only need the hand-held steady cam. He'd let Finn haul in the heavy camera when he got here.  _Which had better be soon._  Kurt may be an amateur ghost investigator, but he did not sign up to wander around a building that could topple down on top of him all on his own.

"This was Finn's idea in the first place," Kurt grumbled under his breath as he lugged the heavy generator towards to hotel. "It will be fun! We can post videos online. We could become famous!"

Rachel had jumped on board at the word "famous".

Kurt had only agreed because his school and his part-time job working the switchboard for a car dealership was boring as hell and there was little interesting to do even in his time off around Lima, Ohio. With Finn's wild idea of starting a ghost hunting show, there was at least a small opportunity for acting. Kurt was at his best when performing. Besides, he was only doing this until he was done with his second year at the University of North Ohio and then he was transferring to NYU and getting out of Lima for good.

The  _Whispering Wolf_  wasn't the first 'haunted' sight Rachel, Finn, and he had explored. They filmed episodes at a couple old houses in Ohio and their last exploration had been an old abandoned restaurant, where purportedly someone had died a few years back. Rachel had declared they been _murdered!_ Poisoned by some deranged cook that used to work there… though the information Kurt dug up said heart attack.

Of course, when they investigated, they found nothing, no ghosts or otherworldly apparitions. They never did – but as she did with everyplace they investigated, Rachel had acted scared and enthralled and had faked a few ghost sightings. Finn was easily impressionable and swore he felt a chill every time they turned a corner. Kurt went along with it all for the acting challenge. After some editing and some music and sound effects were added, the episodes weren't so bad. They might not be believable exactly, but Kurt could at least say they were entertaining. The  _Ghost Investigators_  even had a decent online following.

Kurt lugged the generator and his backpack to the front door of the dilapidated old building and tried the rusted metal handle. The door only opened half an inch before jamming. Kurt sighed and placed the heavy generator on the ground before shouldering the door a couple times, it took all his strength to get it to swing inward wide enough to grab the generator and slide through.

It was pitch dark inside the hotel of course. Kurt turned on his handheld camera, mostly for the small beam of light projected in front of it and swung around the light. It was a typical hotel lobby. If Kurt used his imagination, he could almost picture how it must have looked once upon a time, plush red carpet, blue and gold damask wallpaper, polished wood check-in desk, and a sweeping staircase to the second floor. Now it was nothing more than a sad monument of a forgotten golden era, the carpet was ripped up in parts leaving the rotting wood floorboard beneath, the wallpaper peeled off the wall and hung lifeless like the petals of a dying flower and the check-in desk was covered in dust and cobwebs. Worst of all, the entire place smelled of mildew and decaying wood.

All in all, Kurt had to admit, it was the perfect location for a hunting. Rachel and Finn would be thrilled.

If they ever got here.

Kurt sat the generator down and began shooting some b-roll of the lobby – first just with the attached flashlight and then in night vision mode to get that green eerie lighting that was a hallmark of a good ghost hunting video. Thunder rumbled outside and Kurt's spine tingled as he was reminded of the impending rain. He went back outside to grab the lamps he'd left leaning against the truck and made sure the bed cover was secure so none of the remaining equipment would get wet. He glanced up at the sky as he headed back in, dark storm clouds covered the moon and the wind was picking up. It was going to rain any second now; he really hoped Rachel and Finn got here before it started.

Kurt took a few minutes setting up the lights and hooking them up to the generator. If Rachel wanted some shots of herself in the lobby before the lights were set up, well then she should have gotten here on time. After that, Kurt did a few takes of himself standing in the lobby and introducing the hotel, his camera on a tripod in front of him. "Built in 1921 the  _Whispering Wolf_  is a protected historic building, which is the only reason the whole place hasn't been torn down. It hasn't been in use since 1970." Kurt had actually enjoyed looking into the history of the old building.

The  _Whispering Wolf_ was on the outskirts of Westerville, Ohio. A couple hours' drive from where Kurt lived in Lima, but he'd heard about it before. Of course, he had, since its closure in 1970 it had been a hangout for teenagers, a place for transients to lay their head, and most of all – the center of ghost stories and urban myths. The story was that someone had been murdered here and their spirit still-hunted the hotel even as it sat empty all these years. The story had very little continuity, some said it was a 1920s mobster killed shortly after the hotel opened, others said it was a 1960s hippie girl murdered after running away from home, and there were many other claims as well. The only thing locals seemed to agree on was that the hotel was definitely haunted.

When Kurt did some research, looking at old newspaper articles and police reports, what he found was that someone  _had_  been killed there. Not a hippie or a mobster, just some unnamed young man killed at the  _Whispering Wolf_ in the 1950s. Kurt was happy with just finding out that, it was a lot more than Rachel, Finn, and he usually had to go on when exploring a 'hunted' structure. His research also uncovered that at one point in the 1950s the hotel had been used as a convalescent home. Rachel and Finn had been ecstatic about that fact.

"Holy crap! It was a loony bin?"

"You can’t say 'loony bin', Finn." Rachel chided him. "It was an insane asylum."

"Mental hospital." Kurt corrected with an eye-roll, "Not that it matters, because it wasn't one. It was more like an upscale spa for rich people recovering from minor surgery or illness."

"Kurt you have no imagination. For our purposes, tortured mental patients and the spirits of malevolent doctors roam the halls of that hotel! That's way scarier."

"But there was a murder-"

"Malevolent doctors, Kurt!"

"Oh yeah, the crazy house spin is perfect." Finn had agreed and Kurt didn't fight them on the idea even if he thought the killing in the 1950s made a better and more accurate story. It wasn't as if anyone took the show seriously anyway. People didn’t watch for historic accuracy.

Now that Kurt was alone in this god-forsaken hotel, he was glad to remind himself that it had never been a mental hospital and he tried very hard not to imagine anyone being killed here - or dying here in any way.

It was just an empty building. It wasn't scary, haunted, or sinister. It was just… old. The howling sound was just the wind outside, and the creaking sound was just an old building's shifting foundation, and he  _did not believe in ghosts_.

Kurt pulled his phone out, no messages from either Rachel or Finn. Traitors.

 _You better be here in the next five minutes or you're dead to me!_  Kurt texted them both.

There was a loud boom of thunder outside followed almost immediately by the bright flash of lightning through the windows and the hair on Kurt's forearms stood on end. "Shit," Kurt swore as he fumbled with his phone in surprise.

Even with the light provided by the lamps he had set up the lobby was still dim and ominous, he looked around the empty room, the few pieces of old furniture and the check-in desk casting long shadows in the light of his lamps.  
  
He gasped as he thought he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye and spun to face a broken window, there was nothing there, nothing outside, all he could see was his truck sitting alone under the fading streetlamp.

Kurt shook out his shoulders; he was letting himself get spooked over nothing. Maybe he should just go sit in the pickup until his disloyal ghost hunting partners finally arrived. He started towards the front door when, with another crack of thunder, the storm clouds finally opened and sheets of rain came roaring down. Water splattered in from the broken window frames, but it was still far dryer here than it would be racing out to the truck in this torrent. Kurt chewed on his lip. Fine. He'd wait inside. At least until the rain died down a bit and at that point he might just pack up and leave. This was becoming more of a fruitless endeavor by the minute.

He glanced at his phone again, caught between anger and worry that neither Finn nor Rachel had texted him back yet. He had a couple options here; he could wait in the lobby until the rain lessened, or he could make good use of his time and actually go exploring a little, taking some shots and seeing if there was anything here for a good episode of  _Ghost Investigators_. Kurt sighed, he was Kurt Hummel and the Hummels didn't just sit around on their hands and wait.

He grabbed the handheld cam off the tripod and slowly crept past the check-in desk, the stairway looked solid enough, it wasn't going to give way under his feet at least. He could probably poke around some empty rooms upstairs. The rain rattled against the side of the hotel and the wind wailed, Kurt's spine tingled and he had to let out a long deep breath before he started for the stairs. This was silly; he was  _not_  scared of the dark. He turned the camera on and pointed it towards the staircase. "I'm going exploring while I wait for the untrustworthy Rachel Berry and her bumbling boyfriend. ‘ _We're on our way!'_ ” Kurt rolled his eyes as he whispered to the camera, “Yeah, right." He started up the first few creaky steps. "No reason not to get a look around just because my partners have become completely undependable."

Kurt smoothed down his designer button-up shirt; it was midnight blue with little white crescent moons all over it. It had seemed appropriate for ghost hunting, besides, Kurt knew he looked really good in it and he never passed up a chance to look good on screen. Kurt turned the camera to face him as he paused on the stairwell. "Rumor has it that the  _Whispering Wolf_ is haunted by the spirit of a young man who died here in the 1950s after being shot and killed by a jealous ex-lover.  James Doyle was barely older than me when he met his grisly death."

Rachel and Finn had forfeited their right to fight him on the main story for the  _Whispering Wolf_ episode when they hadn't even shown up. The made-up mental hospital was out. The real-life murder was back on.

Kurt looked up the long staircase not able to make out the second floor in the heavy darkness. He licked his lips nervously, the camera still trained on him. It was okay to let some of his nerves show on camera; it built suspense, as long as he didn't let himself actually get too scared. He was a professional after all. "I guess I should go up there?" Kurt said into the camera before turning it around to view the dismal staircase that led up to utter blackness. He did _not_ want to go up there.

There was a loud crash and a bang from behind him, Kurt spun around with his heart in his throat. The set lights had crashed to the ground, light bulbs popping as the curtains on the front windows flew outwards floating in the air like luminous specters. Kurt let out a startled shriek and then barreled up the rest of the staircase.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!" Kurt panted once he reached the second floor and rounded a corner so he couldn't even see the lobby anymore. He leaned up against a wall and caught his breath turning the camera to face him again. He covered his mouth with a hand and laughed nervously through his fingers before letting his hand drop and taking a deep breath. "I better have gotten that on camera." He joked with his future viewers as he tried to breathe and calm the beating of his heart. "Did you see that? Sure it was probably just the wind, but you would have freaked out too if you were here alone while your co-conspirators are safe and warm somewhere probably making-out having forgotten all about you."

Kurt gently smoothed back his hair and took a deep breath, time to be brave. "I guess I'll check out the second floor now that I'm here." He turned the camera around to face the long dark hallway in front of him. "This is where the murder is said to have taken place. In one of these guest rooms." Kurt looked from the hallway down to the image of the hallway on his camera, "If there is a spirit haunting this place it-" Kurt stopped talking, his throat going dry and a cold chill running down his spine.

There was something in the hallway ahead of him. Just out of sight, he was sure he'd seen something move.

" _Hello_?" Kurt called out, but his voice was barely above a whisper, "Is… is anyone there?" In the back of his mind, he was just starting to think that if this was a prank by Rachel or Finn he was going to murder them – when something in front of him in the darkness moved again.

"Oh god." Kurt glanced back at his camera; the night vision making out more than his eyes could in the darkness, just as something stepped into frame. Kurt took a stumbling step backward, a scream choked in his throat, as the green night vision revealed the grainy outline of a young man.

Kurt gasped audibly and looked up from the camera to the form standing in front of him, donned in slacks, a snuggly fitting button up shirt, suspenders, a bowtie, and looking like he'd just stepped out of the 1950s to personally haunt Kurt.

Kurt screamed.

The ghost screamed back.


	2. Uninvited Visitor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait on this chapter. I had some focus problems while writing! I have the rest of this short story planned out though so hopefully the next chapters don’t take as long. This is still unbetaed so sorry about that. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading and if you feel like leaving a review I’d LOVE to hear from you. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Blaine really didn't know what he was doing. This was such a bad idea. When he left home he'd been so sure, so driven, so  _annoyed_  that he hadn't really thought this plan all the way through. Blaine drove out of Westerville, hands gripping the stirring wheel and replaying the conversation that had gotten him in the mess to begin with.

"Come on Squirt. We have to do something. If dad finds out someone is drawing attention to that godforsaken hotel he'll flip!"

Blaine had stared at his brother, scowled really, as he crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head at Cooper. " _We_? You want _me_ to drive out there and stop them. That's not  _we_."

"It's my idea for you to scare them out of there."

Blaine rolled his eyes, "And it is the dumbest idea I've ever heard."

Cooper wasn't deterred, he rarely was. "Listen, if you get them out of there you get all the credit with dad."

Blaine opened his mouth to protest and then clamped it down again. It really wouldn't hurt to get on his dad's good side with this, but he wasn't going to go to the  _Whispering Wolf_ and pretend to be a ghost as Cooper had suggested. That was absurd. He'd just confront the group and tell them they couldn't be there. He was sure if he stated things with enough authority he could convince them to leave. Well, he was  _almost_  sure.

"Fine," Blaine groaned in surrender. He may not like it but they did need to make sure the  _Whispering Wolf_  episode of "Ghost Investigators" never aired, he'd known that ever since the group had teased it on their website. Blaine just wished his father was in town to handle this. John Mark Anderson was a much more intimidating figure than Blaine could ever hope to be. Even Cooper would be a better choice, standing six feet tall and as handsome as a Hollywood actor, but he was being stubborn about not breaking a date he had for the evening.

That left Blaine.  
  
Five foot eight, curly-haired, and as intimidating as a Labrador puppy. He was also the one who actually had good reason to not come face-to-face with that damn ghost investigator team… that is, with one of the members in particular. Still, there was nothing to do about it. Blaine had stuffed down his annoyance with his brother and fumed out the front door. He didn't let himself think about a plan, or he'd talk himself out of this, he'd just hoped in his car, flipped the radio off when it warned of an impending thunderstorm, and driven forty-five minutes out of town to reach the _Whispering_ _Wolf_   _Hotel_.

Blaine pulled up slowly to the front of the  _Whispering Wolf_ , looking out the front windshield at the tittering old building, forlorn against dark and rumbling sky. This place should have been torn down years ago. Blaine frowned when he noticed the blue pick-up truck parked out front under the only street lamp – they were already here then. He really didn't want to do this. He didn't want to barge in there and tell this group that they couldn't be here, especially Hummel. The other two might just back down and leave, but Kurt? Blaine knew from experience what a razor-sharp tongue he had. Kurt might actually question whether Blaine had the right to tell them to leave. Which of course, he didn't.

Cooper's idea of not talking to them at all but just scaring them off the property came back to him. It was so childish, and it wouldn't work. What would Blaine do anyway? Hide nearby with a quietly whispered ' _oooOOoooo'_ in the hopes that they ran off like frightened children? Blaine was embarrassed even thinking about it. It was just that he _really_ didn't want to face Kurt Hummel.

Blaine looked back up at the heavy clouds ready to break and empty their rain down on the old hotel. Okay, that could be a good thing. If he was going to go through with Cooper's god-awful plan a storm would help.  _Crap, was he actually considering this?  
_

Blaine drove around to the back of the  _Whispering Wolf_  to park out of sight, grabbed a flashlight out of his glove compartment, and patted his back pocket to make sure he had his phone before heading to the hotel. He sighed, _yes he was doing this then_.

There was a back door to the hotel that came open with just a little tugging, and then Blaine found himself in the large open kitchen. Once gleaming counters now covered in dust and dried leaves blown in from the broken windows, ruined light fixtures hanging precariously, and mold growing over the kitchen tiles. The  _Whispering Wolf_  was in worse shape than he'd imagined.

Blaine's spine tingled as he stepped further into the kitchen and flipped on his flashlight. Something quick and furry scurried across the floor and out of sight at the unsuspected light and Blaine jumped back hoping it was just a raccoon and not a huge rat. He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a deep breath. This could go wrong in so many humiliating ways.

He heard a voice from farther in the hotel and ignored his misgivings as he crept out of the kitchen and towards the front of the hotel. He flipped off his flashlight and stayed in the shadows. Kurt Hummel was in the hotel lobby recording himself doing some kind of introduction. Blaine furrowed his brow, was Hummel here alone? Where was the rest of his ragtag little "Ghost Investigators" crew?

There was no way he was marching up to Kurt if he was the only one here. Blaine wasn't usually easily intimidated; he was confident and friendly and was normally good with people. But Kurt Hummel? Kurt made him feel small, unsure, and flustered. His sharp blue eyes and even keener intellect always left Blaine tongue-tied.

They'd been rivals in high school. Blaine the lead of the Warblers and Kurt the outspoken ringleader of the New Directions, a competing show choir. Blaine had learned early on that Kurt could easily stagger Blaine with a well-chosen insult or even a pointed glare. Blaine would retaliate the only way he knew how, by staring Kurt down during Warbler performances, he'd feel vindicated when Kurt would cross his arms awkwardly over his chest and look away. It didn’t start as a way to fluster Kurt, at first Blaine looked at him during performances because something about the lovely but aloof Kurt Hummel pulled focus. Once Blaine realize it made Kurt angry though he kept doing it out of spite. Kurt just knew how to push his buttons.

In retrospect, Blaine sometimes thought it actually would have made sense for them to be friends. They were both out gay guys in a conservative area, they both loved to sing, and had a flair for dressing well, Kurt especially, Blaine admitted to himself. Blaine wondered sometimes what would have happened if either one of them were even a  _little_  less competitive. If they been friends instead of opponents. That could have been nice. Not that it mattered now. Kurt had made it his mission to tear Blaine down at every chance he got. And Blaine and the Warblers had never forgiven Kurt and the New Directions for beating them out of a chance to go to Nationals.

Blaine watched Kurt now, bright lights on his face as he smiled into the camera, his eyes sparkling and his features animated. Blaine slumped against the wall bringing his flashlight to his forehead and punctuating his whispered words to himself with light smacks to his head, "What. Are. You. Doing?"

With one last glance, he forced himself to turn away from the lobby and the sight of Kurt Hummel and grumbled to himself under his breath as he went to the back of the building again. Trying a few doors until he found what he was looking for, the servants' staircase. A plan was vaguely forming in his mind. He pointed his flashlight up the long dark staircase before heading up, swiping at cobwebs as he went. The staircase was narrow and the steps creaked as if a groaning hobgoblin live under them, the sound was haunting enough to make the hairs on the back of Blaine's neck stand on end.

He was going to go upstairs, make some noises, spook Kurt and maybe,  _hopefully_ , Kurt would just leave. The fact that Hummel was here alone was odd but could work in Blaine's favor. Blaine certainly wouldn't stay here alone in the dark and the rain if he started hearing noises from this old creepy hotel. Cooper's plan, as juvenile as it seemed, might actually work.

When Blaine reached the second floor he stood in a dark and empty hallway for a moment taking in his surroundings. The carpet was worn, the walls water stained, and it smelled like mold, dust and like something had crawled up here and died somewhat recently. Yeah, this had to work. Everything about this hotel was just creepy. Blaine wanted to run out of here himself, it couldn't be too hard to scare Kurt off since he was here alone. That might not solve the problem for good, but it would take care of it tonight and then Blaine's father would be home from his business trip and it would be someone else's problem.

Blaine opened the door to the room closest to him and found a ransacked guestroom, bedframe broken the mattress long gone, a table with chairs tipped over and a dresser that was missing all of its drawers. Blaine shivered at the cold breeze and icy rain coming in from the broken window, wishing he'd worn a jacket.  
  
He started by righting the table and chairs making as much noise with it as he could before lifting one of the wooden chairs and banging it rhythmically against the floor. He felt like an idiot and hoped that Kurt would be easily spooked so he could get out of here himself. The problem was that the storm was really picking up, he wasn't even sure if Kurt could hear him over the assailing rain and booming thunder.

Blaine walked to the door of the bedroom and stuck his head out. He could hear talking. Kurt was coming up the stairs and still recording himself. Evidentially much braver than Blaine had given him credit for.

Blaine huffed out a breath of frustration and turned to the dresser, slamming his fist on top of it hoping to make the kind of noise that may scare Kurt off. Instead, Blaine heard scrambling from inside the dresser. Blaine backed away with a startled breath as a dark shadow scurried out of the bottom of the piece of furniture with a hiss. Blaine tried to move away but whatever it was dashed  _straight towards him_.

"Oh god no!" Blaine almost fell backward trying to get away, dropping his flashlight which blinked off with a thud as the unnervingly large rodent sprinted over Blaine's feet with a squeak and then was lost to the shadows of the room. Blaine let out a shout, grabbed his flashlight, and spun towards the door swearing under his breath as he rushed into the hallway fleeing the room and whatever primeval creature he'd just disturbed.

"Oh shit, oh shit." Blaine breathed from the safety of the hallway and then turned as he heard a voice.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

_Oh shit._

Kurt Hummel was standing in front of him pointing his camera straight at him.

 _Damn it. Damn it. Damn it._  
  
Kurt swore and then screamed, the suddenness of it making Blaine's stomach drop and before he knew it, he was screaming too. Blaine backed away quickly arms raised in surrender; Kurt had the look of someone who was going to start flinging things at him. Blaine's back smacked hard against something behind him and he fell ungracefully to the ground, the console he'd run into at the end of the hall toppling over with him.

He stared up at Kurt as he approached, both of them breathing quickly, eyes round and mouths hanging open, still startled.  
  
Kurt just gaped at him for a moment as if not understanding what was in front of him, that damn camera lens still trained on Blaine's face. "Anderson?" Kurt finally whispered. " _Blaine Anderson_? What the hell?”  
  
Blaine tensed, sitting on the floor with his ass a little sore from the fall and his ego more than a little bruised. "Hummel," Blaine replied moving to his feet so he didn't feel quite so ridiculous.

" _What are you doing here?_ "

"I don't see how that is any of your business," Blaine said brushing off the seat of his pants, he really wasn't about to tell Kurt he'd come here with the express purpose of scaring him off. It was too absurd and Kurt already had the habit of making him feel ridiculous. "What are  _you_  doing here, Hummel?"

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid._  It was obvious what Kurt was doing here. Blaine  _knew_  what Kurt was doing here!

Kurt lifted his camera shaking his head as if he still couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Ghost Investigators? The show I do with my friends? Did you follow me out here? You had to have known we were filming tonight… but why would you be here?" Kurt seemed more confused than upset.

Blaine was scrambling for something to say, his skin hot and his tongue slow. Why did one annoying former glee club competitor always have this effect on him? His back was opposite the end of the hallway and a big shattered window was spraying rainwater on him making him shiver. He knew he looked rather pathetic at the moment.

Kurt's confused expression morphed, his eyes growing wide, "Oh my god. Oh my god."

"What?" Blaine quickly looked behind him, his spine tingling, "What is it?"  
  
“You’re here to mess with my shoot!”

Blaine turned back to him. Apparently, his motives were transparent.  
  
“But why would you do that?”

“I’m not… it was my brother…" Blaine didn't have a chance to explain anything more – the wind roared outside sounding like the mournful howl of a lost soul, thunder crashed, and lighting sparked nearby temporarily illuminating the hallway as bright as day. Blaine's heart leaped to his throat as the whole building seemed to quiver.

"That's… a really bad storm." Blaine said looking at the rain cascading outside the window. When he glanced back to Kurt, he found they were standing nearly face-to-face. Kurt's bright blue eyes looking directly into his. "I… what was I saying?" Blaine asked taking a deep breath and a small step backward.

"You were about to tell me what the hell you are doing here, Anderson." Okay, now Kurt sounded mad, his cheeks flush pink. " _Stalking me_ , dressed like you're auditioning for a circus-themed interpretation of The Music Man!"

That was the cutting Hummel tongue Blaine was used to, and in all honesty, a little scared of.

"I… don't…" Blaine looked down at his outfit: white pants, striped navy and white button-up shirt, with green suspenders, and a pink bowtie. He cheeks flushed, he'd liked this outfit up until two seconds ago. He glanced at what Kurt was wearing hoping to poke fun at his outfit, but his perfectly tailored slacks and snuggly fitting and stylish indigo shirt left Blaine's mind blank. _Damn Kurt Hummel._

When he looked back up at Kurt's face Kurt wasn't paying attention to him anymore, instead, his focus was directed at the window and the storm raging outside.

"Maybe we could continue this interrogation elsewhere?" Blaine suggested.

Kurt laughed, "I'm not going anywhere with you, Anderson."

" _I mean_ , maybe we shouldn't be in a nearly toppling building during a storm!" Blaine yelled over the rising sound of the wind. His temper rising as well. He wasn't sure why he was angry, Kurt was right, Blaine had followed him out here. It didn't feel good to be found out though or to have Kurt Hummel cut you down to size.  


"Yeah… yes, you're probably right." Kurt said in a less confident voice and biting his bottom lip. He glanced at Blaine, his eyes no longer angry or confused, but decisive. "We should leave." He said as the building shook with another roll of thunder and lightning. "Come on.  _Quickly_." And just like that Kurt was no longer hostile, he was focused on getting himself out of a potentially dangerous situation. Actually, he seemed to have decided to get them both out of here safely. Blaine wasn't sure what to make of that. He didn't argue though, instead, he hurried to follow Kurt down the hallway towards the entrance staircase.

Blaine would have congratulated himself on a win, it didn't matter that things had gone exactly opposite of his plan, Kurt was leaving – but the violent storm thundering outside left the victory cold in Blaine's stomach. He hurried to pass Kurt, flashlight lighting the way, mostly because he was very ready to leave this place, and partly because his competitive side had turned this into a race. Blaine smiled, not that he would leave without making sure Kurt was okay, but it would maybe help repair his pride to beat him down the staircase.

"Wait!"

Blaine didn't want to wait for Kurt, but he felt an insistent hand on his arm and Blaine came to an abrupt halt, a protest on the tip of his tongue, ready to vent at Kurt. Instead, Kurt kept a tight hold on Blaine's arm as a portion of the ceiling, not even a foot ahead of where Blaine was standing, came crashing down. Blaine's stomach lurched to his throat as floods of water poured in, along with drywall and rotted wood planks, over the spot Blaine would have been if Kurt hadn't stopped him. Blaine looked up where rainwater was still streaming through the ceiling, which was cracking and leaking like a splintered slab of ice. They couldn't continue down this way.

Blaine spun to face Kurt who was staring at the ceiling, his mouth open and his eyes wide.

"Come on," Blaine said turning back the opposite way, thinking of the servants' staircase he'd come up.

"How are we going to get out of here?!" Kurt asked frantically.

Blaine tugged on Kurt's hand, "Don't worry.” Blaine answered with a shaky smile and led Kurt back down the shadowy hallway. “I know a shortcut."


	3. Ghost Investigators

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! I am finally back with another chapter! Can you believe it? I’m alive! Sheesh, I honestly thought for a moment I might not be able to finish this story and I have never left a WIP incomplete so that was a terrifying thought for me. However, I think I have my mojo back and I even have an idea for a new story, but I’m not starting that until this one is finished. Yay!
> 
> With that being said, this is still very unbeta-ed so please forgive this poor dyslexic girl her typos. Also, if anyone wanted to take on the challenge of being my beta for this story… let a gal know. 
> 
> Lastly, I haven’t really responded to any of your comments on this fic, which is unlike me, but please know I’ve read them (probably multiple times) and I appreciate them so much! They are the reason I made myself come back to this story when I honestly couldn’t string two words together on paper. Thank you for your comments, and likes, and reblogs. They give me life!
> 
> Okay, I’ll stop rambling and let you get on with the show. 
> 
> Enjoy!

 

Kurt's heart was pounding in his chest. Nothing about this evening was going as he'd planned. It was bad enough that Finn and Rachel had ditched him (which was better than imagining them in a lying dead in a ditch somewhere) but now he was fleeing for his life with Blaine Anderson, a man he absolutely could not stand. Kurt's head was still reeling from the fact that Anderson was here at all. It just didn't make sense.

Under normal circumstances, Kurt wasn't sure if he'd trust Blaine, but these weren't normal circumstances. Besides, Kurt had just saved him from a collapsing ceiling, so if nothing else Anderson owed him one. Kurt felt a little shaky thinking about that ceiling. A second later in stopping and either of them could have been under that wreckage. So Kurt followed Blaine down a dark hallway out of sheer necessity, Blaine's flashlight and the light on Kurt's camera illuminating the way.

"Here." Blaine spun abruptly to face Kurt his flashlight blaring in his eyes.

"Do you mind?" Kurt snapped swatting at the light.

"Oh. Sorry. Um… it's a back staircase." Blaine explained pointing his light away from Kurt's face and down a long narrow stairwell.

Kurt nodded not mentioning how precarious that stairwell looked. If Blaine wasn't afraid Kurt sure as hell wasn't. "Lead the way, Anderson."

Blaine started down the staircase and Kurt followed him. The stairs squeaked and a few of the boards were loose and wobbly, but Kurt was mostly concerned with the cobwebs he kept having to sweep out of the way. His poor hair. They got to the ground floor just as another drum of thunder filled the air. Kurt really wanted to get out of here. He kept following Blaine until they entered what must be the hotel's old kitchen, large, open, and filthy.

"Where are you going?" Kurt asked not having seen this part of the hotel yet.

"My car is out back." Blaine nodded sweeping his flashlight to a back door.

"Yeah? Well, my truck is parked in the front."

They stood looking at each other for a moment before Blaine shrugged. "Good luck to you then, Hummel."

Kurt narrowed his eyes and gave Blaine the best glare he could muster under the hazardous conditions. Blaine still hadn't explained what he was doing here, but Kurt's need to get away from the  _Whispering Wolf_ won out over his desire to interrogate Blaine. "Fine." Kurt clenched his jaw glowering Blaine in the eyes until he started noting how golden they looked in the light of his flashlight and had to look away. "Good luck to you too." With that, Kurt spun on his heels and headed the opposite direction.

Kurt ground his teeth together feeling scattered and flushed. Blaine Anderson always made his stomach tight and heart pound.  _Not_  because Kurt like him. No, Kurt had gotten over that crush almost as soon as it started, back in his Junior year of High School.

He'd met Blaine when the Warblers came to his school for a "friendly" pre-competition showcase. The New Directions had started things off, singing their hearts out and feeling confident –then those damn prep school boys with their matching blazers and perfect harmonies performed leaving the New Directions feeling inconsequential and sorely underprepared.

Kurt had noticed Blaine right off, of course he had, Blaine was the lead singer, had a lovely tenor voice, and was unfairly handsome. He made Kurt's carefully protected heart skip a beat. Some of Kurt's club members must have noticed Kurt "noticing" Blaine because as they went to meet their competition backstage Santana has strode up beside Kurt.

"Please lady hips, try not to droll all over the gay Hogwarts' leading gnome. No matter how horny you are to get in his tiny pants. They're our enemies now." She turned to face him with a sly grin, "Besides, if you have a crush, it probably means he is straight." With that, Santana had sauntered off and Kurt lagged behind the group until his burning cheeks stopped giving him away.

That had been the beginning of it. When Blaine introduced himself and shook Kurt's hand Kurt saw Santana and Rachel watching him, both of them whispering to each other and giving him pointed stares. Kurt had replied to Blaine's introduction with some quip or another about Blaine's "mediocre performance". Kurt didn't even remember now what he'd said exactly, but whatever it was had done the trick. Blaine's brilliant smile slipped from his face and he backed off.

After that, it was as if Blaine  _knew_  Kurt had initially liked him. Every time the Warblers performed over the next two years Blaine Anderson would find Kurt in the crowd and stare at him until Kurt's cheeks heated and he had to look away. In high school, Kurt hadn't been very good at handling attention from attractive boys. The only thing Kurt could do in return was use his wits against Blaine's looks. Because Blaine may have been as handsome as any silver screen movie star, but Kurt knew how to place a well-worded insult like wilding a blade.

Sure, it was a silly High School rivalry and Kurt was older and hopefully more mature now, but there was still something about Blaine Anderson that got his hackles up. Seeing Anderson here this evening, unexpected, unwelcome – and as dreamy as ever, dammit – had made Kurt revert to his old self. On the defensive and distrustful.

Kurt marched into the hotel lobby grumbling under his breath, he glared at his toppled lights and the mess from the rain spewing in from the window and let out a long frustrated sigh. He should have never come here tonight. All of this was more trouble than it was worth and running into Anderson was just the cherry on top of it all. Scowling, Kurt made his way to the lights and started collapsing them, but he couldn't focus. He pinched his finger in one and then stub his toe up against another. The only thing he could think of was Blaine, which was deeply infuriating.  _How dare Blaine be here? How dare he show up out-of-the-blue with no explanation?_  
  
Kurt stacked the last of the folded lights in a pile and stared at them as if they might have the answer to why he felt so flustered. It wouldn't do. He wasn't going to let Anderson off the hook that easily. He turned away from the lights and sprinted back towards the kitchen. The air crackling with another bolt of lightning. Maybe everything had gone wrong so far, but he was going to satisfy himself on one point at least. Blaine Anderson was going to explain what he was doing here.

He barged into the kitchen, double doors banging closed behind him. Blaine was still here, thankfully, standing by the opened back door.

"Why are you here Anderson?!"

Blaine turned, his dark eyebrows raised in surprise. "Look." Blaine nodded towards to open door, apparently unconcerned with Kurt's anger.

"What?  _No_. I won't be distracted." Kurt was still moving towards Blaine, frustration propelling him on. Kurt only stopped when he reached the door. Blaine was looking outside and Kurt followed his gaze, the rain was still pouring, hammering down from the clouds. Some of it streaming into the kitchen through the open door crating deep puddles on the dirty tiled floor. Kurt could just barely make out a dark car parked nearby, but it was hard to see in the torrent, and the sky was dark, but not as dark as it should be at this time of night and it had a strange green tint to it.

"I don't think we can drive in this!" Blaine shouted to be heard above the rain. He closed the door and backed away. "It would be suicide to try and drive home now. And do you still live in Lima?"

"W-what?"

"That's an even longer trip. It's a bad idea."

Kurt was still carrying his camera, as it was his best source of light, he looked down at the screen instead of meeting Blaine's attentive and concerned eyes. Blaine was right of course, they couldn't possibly drive in this rain, but Kurt didn't want to admit it.

"Wait… are you still recording?"

Kurt nodded, watching Blaine from the screen of his camera. "Yes, I am."

"And  _why_  are you recording me?"

"Why not?" Kurt said lifting his chin and forcing himself to make eye contact. "If I'm stuck here I might as well record for  _Ghost Investigators_." Honestly, he'd hardly even realized he was still recording until Blaine mentioned it, but he seemed bothered about it so Kurt wasn't going to stop.

"You are still going to film an episode of that ridiculous show?"

Kurt glared at him, anger hot in his chest, but also a little embarrassment.  _Ghost Investigators_  certainly wasn't the kind of acting he'd thought he would be doing at this point. He'd hoped to be at NYADA studying musical theater in New York by now. As it was, he was the third wheel on a trivial and only slowly burgeoning internet show. There was no way he'd let  _Blaine Anderson_  make him feel bad about that though.

" _Yes_   _I am_ , and since you are inexplicably here while my teammates are M.I.A. It looks like you just became the guest star on this  _ridiculous_  show."

"Wha-I can't… my fath- you." Blaine sputtered his eyes wide.

Kurt smiled and lifted his camera to get it all on tape. "Smile. You're on camera."

"I'm not doing it."

Kurt shrugged. "You already are."

Blaine opened and closed his mouth a few times looking like a fish and Kurt kept the camera trained on him and smiled. Blaine was kind of cute when he was flummoxed.

"What else is there to do?" Kurt asked forcing his voice to have less of an edge to it. "We're stuck here for now. Together. Let's make the best of it. Let's hunt ghosts!"

Lightning split through the sky illuminating the kitchen through the windows and thunder roared. Blaine jumped and held his chest. Kurt flinched as well but hoped he'd done a better job of hiding his fear.

Blaine stared at him for a moment as if trying to determine if Kurt was serious. "Ghost…" His lips quirked up in a smile that was gone before it had time to form fully.

"We won't go upstairs, because that is obviously dangerous, and we…" Kurt looked out the window where rain was spraying in. "And maybe stay away from windows." He shrugged. "There is supposed to be the ghost of a murder victim from the 50s roaming these halls."

Blaine's face went a little pale and he nodded slowly, "You don't believe in that kind of thing though… do you?"

Of course, Kurt didn't, but it was fun freaking Blaine out. "Who can really say for sure?"

Blaine narrowed his eyes a studied Kurt for a moment. "You're messing with me."

"It's all for the show," Kurt said with a wink and then he immediately looked away from Blaine feeling silly. He  _didn't like_  Blaine Anderson. Why was he joking around with him? "Come on," Kurt said looking at the camera screen and moving away from Blaine. "We have a show to shoot and you can finally tell me why in the world you are here."

Blaine didn't respond and Kurt stopped a few feet ahead and turned back to see him standing in the same spot, a look of bewilderment on his face.

"Anderson,  _move it_."

Kurt continued to the kitchen doorway and didn't look back again but smiled to himself as thunder crashed and he heard Blaine hurrying to catch up.

* * *

What had started out as a bad idea was quickly becoming a massive mistake. Blaine rushed out of the kitchen following Kurt and noticing how well Kurt's pants fit him. Not that he was purposefully looking… but he wasn't purposefully  _not_  looking either.

"Back in the main lobby of _The Whispering Wolf_ ," Kurt called out over the storm and it took Blaine a second to realize Kurt was talking to the camera not him. "We are going to check out some of the rooms on the first floor." Kurt flipped the camera to face him and Blaine could see them both on screen. "Since going upstairs during this storm is an actual risk to our lives," Kurt said gravely. "Isn't that right Anderson?"

"I… um." Blaine looked at the camera and resisted the urge to wave. "You saved my life up there."

Kurt's face went blank for a moment as if that was the last thing he expected Blaine to say, he recovered quickly. "Meanwhile, you haven't even had the courtesy to thank me for that."

"I did! Didn't I? I meant too."

Kurt stopped looking at Blaine through the camera and turned to face him instead. "Honestly, we were moving so fast I don't remember, but you can thank me by telling me what brings you to the Whispering Wolf on such a dark and stormy night."

"I…"

"Are you a vagabond, sleeping rough? Has your position in the world detreated that much since High School? Or maybe you just have a predilection for old crumbling buildings? Or you were out here bird watching and got stuck in the storm?"

Blaine could tell Kurt didn't believe any of those explanations as his voice became more and more sarcastic as he went on. The problem was that Blaine couldn't think of a single reasonable explanation for being here. Even the truth didn't seem that reasonable right now.

Kurt's eyes narrowed as his mocking tone disappeared, "Oh my god. You really were here just to sabotage me. What the hell?"

"What?"

"Why the hell else would anyone be out here? You  _did_  know we were going to be doing an episode here and-"

"No." Blaine interrupted even though Kurt was dead on. "I'm here ghost hunting," Blaine said surprising himself.

"Excuse me?"

"I did see that you and your show were doing an episode here." Blaine didn't take any time to think. That was as good an explanation as any. Better than his own. "I thought I could do it better."

" _What_?"

"I mean you did announce online that you were coming out here it wasn't like it was a secret," Blaine said thinking on his feet. "And my brother Cooper and I thought we could do a ghost investigation show better than that embarrassing show you call entertainment." Blaine's confidence was growing. "So yes, I was here to get the lay of the land, before Cooper and I came out to film."

Blaine  _really_  didn't like lying, but the look on Kurt's face made him feel like he had the upper hand for the first time the evening. Besides, he couldn't tell Kurt why he was really here. He couldn't tell him Cooper's harebrained idea of scaring him away. Or why Blaine's father wouldn't want anyone filming here.

Kurt expression morphed from disbelieving to furious, eyebrows drawn and blue eyes flashing. "You really are a jerk, Anderson. I would have hoped you'd grown out of it, but you are every bit the cocky bastard you were back in high school."

Blaine's cheeks flushed at that. Kurt thought  _he'd_  been the jerk in high school? That was distinctly not how Blaine remembered things. " _Really_?" Blaine scoffed, "That's the pot calling the kettle black!"

"Oh please!" Kurt shouted angrily. "You were arrogant, self-involved, and only cared about winning!"

"You never had a kind word to say to anyone,  _Hummel_ ," Blaine yelled back. "The first time we met you insulted me and the Warblers before I could say a word!

"That wasn't... I was just trying…" Kurt's face was red as he sputtered out a retort. "Well,  _you_  were purposefully there to intimidate us and make us feel inferior!"

Blaine stopped at that. Had the Warblers suggested that showcase to make the New Directions feel bad? No. Blaine thought about it, they honestly hadn't. Had they done it to intimidate them? Maybe, a little, it was a competition. The Warblers might have wanted to get in the New Directions heads, but not because they ever thought they better than the McKinley High students, it wasn't like that.

"That isn't why we were there!" Blaine finally spat out. "If you felt inferior that was your own perception!"

"Oh sure, your motives were so pure!"

Blaine was trying to think of something else to say, to yell really because this had quickly turned into a shouting match, when he noticed how very, very close he was standing to Kurt. They seemed to have moved towards each other in the heat of the argument. Their noses nearly touching. Blaine sucked in a quick breath and took a step backward. The wind howled and lightning flashed outside the windows. They both took a moment to breathe and calm themselves.

"The two of us fighting won't make a very good episode." Blaine finally said and nodded to the camera in Kurt's hands that was still filming. Blaine smiled a little and hoped his tone came off as pleasant and not condescending, seeing as Kurt seemed to think he was some kind of smug jackass.

"I don't know. I could throw a glass of water in your face and we could go for a 'housewives of haunted hotels' vibe." Kurt wasn't meeting his eyes, but Blaine was pretty sure he was teasing. He finally looked up with a sigh, "Are you trying to sabotage the episode by getting me riled up?"

"Honestly, I'm not Kurt. I concede. Tape your episode; I'll stay out of your way." Blaine motioned to the back rooms of the first floor that they couldn't actually see from here because it was so dark. "I'll just wait the storm out here you go do what you came here for."

Kurt shifted on his feet and looked to the back of the hotel, so dark it was like the huge gaping mouth of a creature just waiting to consume them.

Blaine studied Kurt's profile, pale in the light from the camera screen illuminating his face. High cheekbones, upturned nose, strong jaw. Blaine felt his chest tighten. Kurt had always been beautiful, but right now, he looked ethereal. Kurt turned his gaze back to Blaine, his deep blue eyes mesmerizing. Blaine held his breath as Kurt seemed to struggle with what to say next.

"I don't want to go back there alone." Kurt finally admitted.

Blaine glanced again at the almost palpable darkness from the back of the hotel.

"Don't say anything at all if you're just going to make fun."

"I'm not." Blaine looked at Kurt with a smile. "I don't blame you. I'm impressed you're considering it at all."

"Okay, then." Kurt pulled his shoulders back looking determined. "You wanted to do a taping of the  _Whispering Wolf_  with your brother, out of the blue and seemingly just to mess with me I might add." He held up a hand before Blaine could protest. "I can look past that. I wanted to do an episode with my unreliable friends who never showed up. But what do we have instead? Each other." Kurt held out a hand. "So, what do you say, Anderson? Partners? Just for this evening?"

Blaine looked down at Kurt's hand and could feel a smile slowly tip up his lips. This was the exact opposite of what Blaine came here to do, but Blaine couldn't help it, he loved the idea of working  _with_  Kurt instead of against him. He slowly took Kurt's hand in his, Kurt warm soft skin pressed against own calloused fingers making his heart beat a little faster. "Okay." Blaine smiled fully, this was just another bad idea in a long string of bad ideas for the evening, but Kurt's tentative smile was too tempting to resist. "Partners."


	4. An Apparition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! Here I am back with another chapter - and with a Beta! I want to give a HUGE thank you to starryeyedstanley on Tumblr for being my beta. Not only for this chapter but she went back and went over previous chapters for me as well. #Wonderfulhumanbeing. 
> 
> Thank you also to everyone reading and an extra thank you for those of you who reblog and comment. You give me life. 
> 
> Of course, all mistakes are mine. 
> 
> Enjoy!

 

 

Blaine was shocked by how quickly Kurt's demeanor transformed as soon as they decided to work together. He gifted Blaine with a smile, small but genuine, and Blaine realized that though it wasn't the first time over the years that he'd seen Kurt Hummel smile, it was certainly the first time one was directed towards him. It made Blaine's stomach flip over.

_Okay, that was an unexpected and unwelcome reaction._

Also unwelcome was the warm feeling in Blaine's chest as Kurt started grabbing things out of the generator bag on the floor and handing them to Blaine. As if the years of rivalry between them meant nothing and he was counting on Blaine to help him.

Blaine watched Kurt, his movements graceful, but hurried, he dropped a couple of things, but just picked them up and carried on as if being a little clumsy was something Kurt was used to. He was talking the whole time, his voice had a melodic ring to it even when he was only talking about the items they were about to use for their video. It wasn't until Kurt stood up straight and looked Blaine in the eye that Blaine realized he hadn't actually been paying attention to Kurt's actual words, too fixated on the strange way Kurt's presence was making him feel.

Kurt arched a brow and crossed his arms, "Anderson, are you even listening to me?"

"I was…" Blaine glanced down to his arms, the items Kurt had given him held there. He had no idea what they were or if Kurt had already explained their use. "I was distracted."

Kurt sighed in exasperation. Blaine looked back up at him and Kurt's eyes flashed in annoyance. "If we're going to work together you have to at least listen to me when I'm talking."

"Right, of course. Sorry." They may have decided to be a team, temporarily, but Kurt's frustrated expression was a reminder that Blaine was still on very thin ice. "I'm listening."

Kurt's arms remained crossed and his narrowed eyes and the hard line of his lips let Blaine know he was dubious.

Blaine shifted the things he was holding to one arm so he could put his hand over his heart. "I promise, Kurt, I will listen to what you have to say. Please, will you teach me how to do this?"

"Are you just going to steal anything I teach you and use it for your show with your brother?"

"I swear I'm not," Blaine assured him trying to look as sincere as he felt. He really wanted Kurt to trust him, besides it was an easy promise considering Blaine had just made up the fact that he and Cooper were interested in filming a ghost hunting show. Maybe lying to Kurt about why he was here wasn't the best way to earn his trust… but Blaine didn't know how to backpedal from here.

Kurt's stared at him for a long silent moment, but his face finally softened and his shoulders relaxed. "Fine." He reached for the camera he'd placed on the ground and started to record again as he explained to Blaine how to use the tools he'd given him.

"This is an EMF Detector. I think we'll mostly use it tonight. It reads electromagnetic energy. If we were someplace with electricity we'd have to sweep the area for regular electric currents, but since this place is abandoned and basically crumbling around us, I think it safe to say there's no electricity here." Kurt flipped the little handheld device on and a yellow lights lit up the top. "If this turns green then we are reading electricity. The idea is that ghosts use electricity to manifest themselves and we will read it with this."

"Okay…"

"It also lets out a little clicking sound when it reads electromagnetic energy. Rachel insisted we spend more money on the one that makes noise because it's creepier, and honestly, she was right about that."

"So you're saying if this thing goes green and starts making noises we've found a ghost?" Blaine looked from the EMF detector to Kurt incredulously. That was preposterous - but it still made the hairs on Blaine's arm stand on end.

Kurt smiled again, and wow, his smile still had that stomach swooping effect on Blaine. "That's the general idea."

"And you believe that?"

Kurt shook his head and put his finger to his lips as if telling a secret. "I don't believe in ghosts." He whispered and smiled again, "But since Finn and Rachel aren't here to believe for me, I'll have to be a little less skeptical this episode."

Blaine couldn't help mirroring Kurt's infectious smile. "This actually sounds like fun." Blaine lifted the other two items Kurt gave him, "And these are?"

"Digital thermometer – to detect cold spots – and a motion sensor."

"Of course," Blaine said with a wink and noted that Kurt flushed a little. He wasn't sure what that was about, Kurt was confident in everything he did and Blaine doubted a wink from him would make Kurt Hummel blush. He must have imagined it.

"Right. So. Um." Kurt fiddled with the buttons of his collar. "We might switch carrying the camera so we both get some screen time, but I'll handle it for now. I can always flip it around if I have something to say."

Blaine nodded and looked back towards the dark empty space of the hotel that they were about to explore, his spine tingled and he felt fidgety. He didn't actually want to go back there, but there was no way he would admit that to Kurt.

"Here." Kurt handed him a small bag he could attach to his belt. "For the thermometer and motion detector. You can carry the EMF reader."

"Whatever you say," Blaine answered storing the items Kurt gave him. "You're the boss."

"And you're awfully agreeable for someone who was trying to steal this episode from out under me and who thinks my show is ridiculous in the first place."

"It's not ridiculous," Blaine confessed not fully meeting Kurt's gaze. "I only said that because I was angry."

Kurt rolled his eyes, "Of course. I bet you haven't even watched the show."

"I have!" Blaine had watched each of the episodes, more than once. His favorite was the second episode, they were exploring some old house in Rachel's neighborhood and Kurt was wearing this white cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up showing off his perfectly sculpted arms. "I've watched all the of them actually, they're really good.  _You're_  really good."

"Oh." Kurt looked at him quizzically, seeming at a loss for words and Kurt was never at a loss for words. "Well…" He licked his lips and Blaine watched the movement attentively. "Good, you get the basic idea then." He said coming back to himself, "Ready, Anderson?"

Kurt didn't wait for Blaine's response, he flipped on the beam light of his camera and set off towards the area far behind the front desk. Blaine watched him for a moment, appreciating the easy way he sashayed in the face of danger, before quickly following behind.

There was a whole back section to the ground floor, wide double doors behind the staircase, one of which was falling off its hinges, tilted like a crooked tooth in a huge monstrous mouth.

"We are venturing into the belly of the beast," Kurt said to the camera. "I know most of the guest rooms were upstairs, but I'm not sure what we are going to find down here. You have the EMF ready, Anderson?" Kurt said turning to him.

Blaine just nodded.

"Really? That's the best you can do? We're making a show here."

"Sorry. Right." Blaine could be a showman. He could do a better take. Blaine squared his shoulders and looked directly to the camera, "This is my first ghost investigation, but already I can feel something in the air, an icy and old presence." He lifted the EMF reader that was still blinking yellow. "Now we wait for the EMF to feel it too."

Kurt smiled behind the camera, biting his lip and obviously pleased. He slowly turned back to the double doors and reached forward to push the one that didn't look like it might fall off its hinges and knock them over. It slowly creaked inwards, dust and cobwebs that hadn't been disturbed for years floating eerily to the ground.

It was hard to make out what was behind the door. Kurt's camera light and Blaine's flashlight showed that it was a large room but not much more.

Kurt took a slow step forward and Blaine followed his lead, the door closed behind them with a loud bang just as another crashing roll of thunder filled the air and lightning flashed. Blaine let out a startled squeak that he sincerely hoped the thunder covered up and watched as Kurt's whole body went rigid for a second before relaxing again.

"This place is going to age me ten years," Kurt said with a chuckle.

One good thing the lightning did for them though was show that they were in a large room with a lot of windows.

"Some kind of ballroom?" Blaine asked as they continued deeper into the room.

"Mayb-  _Shit._ " Kurt hissed and started to fall forward, Blaine quickly moved to grab his arm and keep him from hitting the ground. Not letting go until Kurt seemed steady on his feet again. Kurt pointed his camera to the ground to see the broken wooden chair he'd almost tripped over. "Or a dining room?" Kurt ventured.

Blaine moved the beam of his flashlight over the room. There were a few tables and chairs broken and flung about or pushed up against the walls, and some blankets, an old mattress and assorted garbage littered around. "Maybe a long time ago it was a dining room, looks like some kind of derelict shelter now."

"It's kind of sad thinking about people living here because they have nowhere else to go," Kurt said kicking at the corner of the old worn mattress. Kurt's voice was soft with compassion and Blaine couldn't help but move to stand next to him. "Luckily there is no one here looking for shelter tonight."

"Just us."

Kurt turned to Blaine, his smile returning. "And maybe a ghost."

They poked around the room for a while, the EMF detector stayed silent, its yellow lights like the blinking eyes of a dark cat following them around the open space. They didn't find anything of interest, a few old condoms among the trash that had Kurt curling his nose up in disgust.

"At least whoever was having sex here was being safe?" Blaine joked.

"Anderson, no." Kurt deadpanned, "Still disgusting."

Kurt continued to tell about the history of the hotel and some about the young man who was shot and killed there in the 1950s. The newspaper article Kurt had read as part of his research said he was killed by a jealous ex-lover while staying at the hotel with his new love. "There aren't really many details," Kurt said looking into the camera and walking backward towards the windows where lightning was still flashing outside.

Blaine had to admit it was a very dramatic shot, Kurt detailing a murder while being backlit by the stormy night sky. Kurt had a knack for this and Blaine found he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

They were standing close to the broken windows now, close enough to feel some of the spray from the rain outside. Blaine was intently watching Kurt, intrigued both by the story and the storyteller, when he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

Blaine turned. There. Near the entrance of the room. Something flashed, something white and seemingly hovering over the ground. Blaine blinked and it was gone almost as soon as he saw it.

"Um… Kurt?" Blaine swallowed, his throat suddenly dry.

Kurt was still talking to the camera.

The white apparition appeared again, nearer the door now as if it was leaving the room. "Kurt!"

"Oh my god, Anderson what-"

"Look!" Blaine pointed his flashlight beam towards whatever he'd seen, but it was gone again. He was fully prepared for Kurt to mock him or reproach him for interrupting, but instead, Kurt walked towards him, standing so close the backs of their hands touched.

"You saw something?" Kurt's voice was soft intrigued, not at all derisive.

"I honestly did."

Kurt turned to him with a bright and eager smile. The camera held high in one hand to capture both of them. "Let's see what it is."

They took a couple steps forward and then stopped short, the wind outside must have shifted because suddenly a gust of air filled the room lifting trash and debris off the ground and making them swirl around the room. Blaine's stomach clenched and Kurt held onto the camera with both hands making sure to capture every second of the strange phenomenon.

"Look towards the door!" Kurt yelled over the flurry of the storm. Blaine saw what Kurt did, that same whiteish shape, not just a piece of trash because it wasn't being tossed around, it hovered motionless near the door.

Something touched Blaine's hand and he almost jumped, before realizing Kurt had reached out to hold it. "Come on."

They walked towards the door together and were getting uncomfortably close to the…  _thing_. When it disappeared again.

"What in the-" Kurt's words were cut off by a loud, horrendous crash behind them. They both instinctively ducked down, protecting their faces, which turned out the be a good idea because shards of wood and trash and glass started pelting their backs as the wind howled around them.

Blaine carefully looked behind them, shielding his eyes to see that a tree had crashed part way through the windows, actually taking some of the wall down with it.

"We have to get out of here!" Kurt yelled and grabbed Blaine's hand again as they sprinted the last few feet to the doubles doors. They pulled the one working door open with effort and it slammed loudly behind them as they reached the relative safety of the dark lobby. It was quieter here, even though they could still hear the storm raging outside.

"Oh my god, oh my god!" Blaine ran his fingers through his thick curly hair as it hit him how close they'd come to being taken down by a stray flying tree. "If we hadn't - oh god."

"Blaine."

"If we'd still been near the windows!"

" _Blaine_ " Kurt called.

Blaine quickly looked towards him.

"Are you okay?"

Blaine nodded taking mental stock of his body. He seemed unharmed. "I, yes," Blaine said even though his heart was beating rapidly. He noticed Kurt had a cut on his cheek, shallow but bleeding.

"You're hurt," Blaine gasped, shining his flashlight at Kurt's cheek, but being careful not to direct the light in Kurt's eyes. "You're bleeding."

"Am I?" Kurt lifted a hand to touch his cheek seeming a little in shock when he found blood on his fingertips.

"I don't think it's bad," Blaine moved to stuff the EMF reader in his pocket and awkwardly held his flashlight under his chin. He unbuttoned the cuff of his sleeve so he could use the end to gently dab Kurt's cut clean, it had already stopped bleeding which was a good sign.

"Oh my god Blaine! Your shirt! What are you doing?" Kurt's eyes were round in disbelief.

Blaine just shrugged rolling his sleeve up to hide the blood stain and doing the same with the other side so he'd a least match. 'It's just a shirt."

"Yes, but I can tell it was expensive."

Blaine held the flashlight in his hand again and just grinned at Kurt. "Not as valuable as a person's face. Are you okay?"

Kurt's lips parted and he didn't say anything for a moment.

"Kurt?"

"Yes. Fine." He lifted a hand to touch his cheek but then thought better of it. "Oh, my poor complexion."

"You're still gorgeous," Blaine answered before he had even given it any thought.

Kurt's eyebrows shot up and he looked at Blaine as if he couldn't have been more shocked if Blaine suddenly starting breathing fire.

Blaine could feel his cheeks heating up, but decided to just move on and pretend he wasn't an idiot with no filter. "Um… the storm is getting worse." He really hoped Kurt would take the queue and allow the change of subject.

Mercifully, he did. With a barely suppressed smile, Kurt turned to look out the windows at the front of the building. Keeping his distance for safety. "Look at the clouds!"

Blaine's stomach plummeted when he looked outside. Everytime lightning flashed it revealed the sky to be a murky green color and the clouds looked like they were swirling into a funnel.

"That's bad."

"That's the start of a tornado," Kurt whispered beside him, his voice barely loud enough to hear over the gale.

It was Blaine who reached for Kurt's hand this time. "We need to find shelter."

"We're in the middle of nowhere!" Kurt turned to him with frightened eyes. "Our cars aren't safe and this building could literally collapse on top of us!"

"We have to find a closet, or something, a small room without windows."

"Right. Okay." Kurt nodded looking determined as he swung his camera towards a dark corner of the building. The dining area was in the back, the kitchen to the right, the only place they hadn't explored was that last shadowy section. "Let's go look!"

Blaine followed Kurt, well really Kurt pulled him along, but Blaine didn't mind. There was another large wooden door that they pushed through only to find themselves in a hallway with several other doors. A window at the end. It was a somewhat safer area because at least there weren't large windows across a whole wall like the other rooms on the ground floor, but as the storm continued to rage outside it still didn't make Blaine feel secure.

Kurt went to the first door he found and tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge. Blaine put his shoulder to it, but still nothing.

"This way!" Kurt shouted and nodded down the corridor. "That last door at the end."

Blaine glanced the direction Kurt indicated and his breath caught in his throat, that same strange, evanescent white shadow was hovering by the door Kurt wanted to try.

"You do see…"

"Yes. I see it." Kurt said pointing his camera right at it.

"Are you still ghost hunting?! At a time like this?"

Kurt glanced at him with wide innocent eyes, "Two birds with one stone, right?" Then he smiled and hurried down the hallway. Blaine honestly didn't know what else to do but follow him.

By the time they reached the end of the hall the white object had vanished again, but when Kurt tried the door it had hovered near it easily opened with a long creak that made Blaine's spine tingle.

Kurt turned to Blaine his eyes dancing with adventure and then pointed his light through the doorway, Blaine did the same. It wasn't a room or a closet, but a long dark stairway leading underground and into complete darkness.

"Well, that's perfect.' Kurt said but he didn't move an inch.

"A basement or cellar is the safest place in a storm." Blaine agreed, but he didn't move either.

"Then why do I want to stay up here and take my chances with a tornado?"

There was a loud crash behind them - something collapsing somewhere at of the front hotel. They both looked quickly behind their shoulders and then at each other. Blaine could see it in Kurt's eyes, they knew what they had to do.

Nearly in unison, they both took a deep breath and then walked through the door taking the stairwell and descending into darkness.


	5. The Basement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! Here I am with chapter five! It is by far my favorite chapter of this fic so far and a lot happens, so hold onto your hats or they may get blow away in a tornado!
> 
> A big hug and thanks to my beta Starryeyedstanley who is wonderful. xoxo  
> Also, just a heads up we are nearing the end of this fic now.
> 
> As always your comments = life.  
> Enjoy!

 

Kurt was having far more fun than a person trapped in a decaying old building during a severe storm should reasonably have. He always loved a good ghost investigation, but tonight was turning about to be the best one yet... and the company wasn't bad either. He could already picture how great this episode would turn out.

That was if they made it out of the  _Whispering Wolf_ alive.

Kurt flipped the light off on his camera and went to night vision mode.

"Oh god!" Blaine called from beside him as they stopped halfway down the groaning old staircase to the basement. "Why would you do that? It is so much darker now!"

Kurt turned to look at him unable to suppress his smile, "The footage will be better this way."

Blaine stared at him with lips parted and eyes wide, a look of disbelief that he'd seen from Blaine a few times already tonight. "You know our lives are in  _real_   _actual_  danger, right?"

"We found a basement!" Kurt said encouragingly as he nodded down to the darkness below them. "We'll be safe. The flashlight on my camera certainly isn't going to provide us with any added protection."

"No, but it would be less creepy," Blaine murmured under his breath and again Kurt felt a smile spread across his face.

Blaine Anderson wasn't anything like he'd expected. He was funny, interesting and kind. He'd let Kurt drag him all over this hotel and seemed just as worried about Kurt's safety as his own. Maybe Blaine had changed since high school.

 _Or maybe you never gave him a fair chance in the first place._  Kurt's annoying inner monologue chided him.

"I'll turn it back on if it really bothers you," Kurt offered, trying to show Blaine that he had changed too. Trying to show him, that for once, they were on the same side.

"No, it's okay. Get your shot. I... um… just wasn't expecting it," Blaine said sending Kurt a shy smile.

Kurt nodded and let out a long breath as he looked through his camera screen to the greenish hued emptiness it illuminated. It wasn't that Kurt was unafraid. This whole situation had gotten very dangerous very quickly and looking down this long staircase and not knowing what they were walking into was nerve-wracking. Kurt just couldn't help but feel a little excited as well.

He felt like a daring adventurer with a dashing companion by his side. Because no matter how much Kurt hated to admit it, Blaine was rather dashing. With his sparkling eyes, stunning smile, and warm voice. He was dapper too, despite how Kurt had mocked him earlier - his 1950s schoolboy chic was working for him. Kurt remembered why he'd had that instant crush on Blaine all those years ago. Looking at Blaine Anderson was like checking off a mental list of everything Kurt considered a turn on.

" _Plus he's gay_ ," Kurt said under his breath, back in high school Kurt had a bad habit of crushing on straight boys.

"What was that?"

"Um… right this way!" Kurt answered and mentally kicked himself. "We can't stand on this staircase forever."

They slowly made their way down the stairs by the light of Blaine's flashlight, the steps rasping and whining beneath their feet like a ghastly warning not to go any further. There was nowhere left to run through, this was their only choice. They reached the bottom and the air suddenly felt colder, the space musty and stale.

Kurt turned to Blaine with a tentative smile, "Wanna swing that flashlight around and show us what we're working with here?"

Blaine nodded and panned his flashlight around the basement. It was a large room, with concrete floor and walls, there were shelves and boxes and a few large wooden crates. Everything was covered in dust and cobwebs and from what Kurt could see the cardboard boxes were all moldy and falling apart.

"Lovely." Blaine looked at Kurt and grinned, "Such a charming place to wait out a storm."

Kurt felt his chest tighten at Blaine's smile, his eyes crinkled with it, his whole face was smiling. Kurt couldn't help thinking,  _The location may not be charming, but you are._

"We should at least be safe from the building collapsing on top of us," Kurt said out loud, and as if to highlight his point they heard a barrage of thunder from above them and then a loud crash.

"Holy crap." Blaine's eye were wide, his thick eyebrows raised, "It actually sounds like the building is collapsing."

"I'm sure it sounds worse than it is," Kurt breathed, but he wasn't convinced. Kurt was afraid, but doing his best to hide it, as visions of the whole hotel toppling down and burying them in this moldy mausoleum of a basement flitted through his mind.

Kurt was pulled out of his grim thoughts as he felt warm skin against his knuckles, he glanced down to find Blaine brushing the back of his hand against Kurt's. Not holding it, but still providing physical contact. They had held hands several times already this evening, but mostly so that Kurt could pull Blaine around. This felt different, sweet and almost intimate.

"We'll be okay," Blaine said and his voice actually sounded calm, "We are safe down here even if it is stupidly creepy. And my brother knows we're out here. If worse comes to worse and the building  _does_ actually fall in on itself. Someone will come for us."

Kurt licked his lips nervously and continued to gaze at their hands, their knuckles gently knocking together. He couldn't speak for a moment and he wasn't sure why. Yes, Blaine was attractive and as it turned out not a total douchebag, but that was no reason for Kurt to feel this strongly about him. It was just a little crush  _four years ago_. And he was well over it now. Wasn't he?

Kurt looked back up to find Blaine watching him carefully.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, fine."

"Okay... because you're supposed to be the brave one here. I'm just the clueless sidekick following your lead." He winked and Kurt let out a chuckle feeling himself relax. Though honestly, Blaine needed to stop winking at him before Kurt blushed as bright as Blaine's flashlight.

"Well then, oh clueless follower," Kurt teased, "Let's see what's down here in this godforsaken basement."

"No hovering white apparitions, so that's good," Blaine said following Kurt and lighting his way as Kurt made it over to the nearest cardboard box.

"Yeah, that was… weird." Kurt kicked the box with the toe of his shoe and then knelt down to lift one of the flaps. A distinctly foul and rotten smell wafted out of the box which had Kurt back on his feet, covering his mouth, and coughing immediately.

Blaine took a step back. "Oh god, something died in there."

"Agh!" Kurt shouted in disgust and hurried away from the box. "No, no. Nope."

"You don't want to see what's in there?" Blaine teased.

Kurt spun towards him with narrowed eyes. "It looked like some old magazines, and the smell suggests a dead… something. I already know more than I needed to know."

"Fair enough. Here switch with me." Blaine said handing him the flashlight and reaching for the camera. "If you find anything else disgusting we need to get your facial expression on tape. For posterity."

"Ha. Ha." Kurt deadpanned but handed him the camera. "I'm not easily embarrassed, Anderson."

"I wasn't trying to embarrass you, I swear. It was cute."

Kurt huffed at that, not knowing how to answer and turned to walk deeper into the basement, the beam of Blaine's flashlight his only guide.

"You could… call me Blaine you know."

Kurt reached one of the large wooden crates and tried to find the edge of the lid, "What?"

"You did before. Upstairs, you started calling me Blaine instead of Anderson."

"I'm going to call you  _annoying_ if you don't get over here and help," Kurt said and hoped Blaine knew there wasn't any real bite to his words, he was only joking, maybe clumsily flirting a little. " _Blaine_ ," He added with a smile for good measure.

Blaine returned his smile and hurried past Kurt to a shelf against the wall, he sat the camera down and checked the screen before going back to Kurt. "We're both on camera now."

They lifted the lid on the crate, needing both of their strength to slide it off, but found the it empty. They could still hear the rumble of thunder from above them and every once in a while it felt like the walls were shaking, but neither of them mentioned it. There wasn't anything they could do and so they explored the dark damp basement, directed comments now and again to the camera, and continued with their investigation. It was a good distraction.

Blaine nodded towards a stack of cardboard boxes suggesting Kurt search them.

"I don't think so. If you're so eager to rip open soggy, mold-riddled boxes feel free."

Blaine laughed and actually went for the top box but stepped away with a grimace when his hand came back dirty. " _Ugh_ , gross."

He moved towards Kurt reaching his hand out as if to wipe it on Kurt's clothes. Kurt actually screeched and jumped backward, swinging the flashlight. "Get away from me!" Kurt found himself laughing as Blaine walked towards him like a zombie that just wanted to wipe its hands clean. "No! Gross!" Kurt backed into a shelf still grinning widely. "Use your own clothes!"

Blaine stopped right in front of Kurt and shrugged. "This shirt is a goner anyway," he said wiping his hand off.

"Your poor outfit."

"You mean my  _circus themed music man_  outfit?" Blaine asked leaning forward towards Kurt with one hand braced on the shelf.

"I…" Kurt shook his head. "That wasn't true. I um… I actually like what you're wearing."

"It's okay, you don't have to say that. I know you were upset and surprised to see me before."

"Exactly, which was part of the reason I was so mean. You really do look…"  _Handsome. Amazing. What was it that Blaine had said about him? Gorgeous._ Kurt's stomach swooped at the memory. "Stylish." Kurt landed on, that seemed safe.

"Really?" Blaine lifted a bow and smiled mischievously as he moved in closer. "Because if you mean that, it is a huge compliment from someone so fashion forward themselves."

"I do… I mean it." Kurt's heart was beating fast at how close Blaine was to him, "You always look good. I mean, dress good. Well. You dress well."  _Kurt stop talking!_

Blaine searched Kurt's face for a moment and then glanced down with a chuckle, Kurt was able to make out the shadow of his long lashes against his face by the light of the flashlight.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot," Kurt said quietly.

"When I came and crashed your shoot tonight?" Blaine asked looking back up through those long lashes.

"Yes."  _And when we first met._ Kurt thought, wishing there was a way he could go back and change that moment. He couldn't change the past, but maybe in the present he could give Blaine a chance at friendship. If Blaine was willing. "I'm actually really glad you're here." Kurt was quiet for a moment listening to the storm upstairs. "Being here alone… I don't know how I would have handled that."

"You would have been brave," Blaine answered as if he knew it for a fact. "Just like you've been brave for the both of us."

Kurt chuckled and realized that Blaine had been leaning even closer to him this entire conversation. He was so close now Kurt's skin tingled with the soft brush of his breathing and it was so dark in this basement that it felt like they were the only two people in the world. Kurt looked into Blaine's hazel eyes and had to force himself not to lean in and press their lips together.

"You um… probably wish the rest of your team was here instead of me though," Blaine said breaking the moment and taking a step back.

"Huh?" Kurt blinked and cleared his throat, his fingers itched to reach out for Blaine and pull him back in, but then his mind turned to thoughts of Finn and Rachel. His heart squeezed in his chest. He'd actually been trying very hard not to think of Finn and Rachel, when he did he started to feel a little frantic.

"Kurt? What's wrong?" Blaine's eyebrows furrowed in concern. "Did I say something wrong? You just went a little pale."

"I… I'm just worried about my friends. Rachel said they were on their way, but they never showed up and with this storm…" Kurt trailed off not able to finish that thought.

Blaine nodded understanding, his eyes sympathetic. "I'm sure they're fine Kurt."

"You can't know that."

"Is it possible they said they were on their way but hadn't actually left yet?

"Well, yes." Kurt had to admit that was very possible.

"In which case, they are safe at home and worrying about you. Worse case scenario they had to stop on their way here to find shelter, but they're smart. I'm sure Finn and Rachel are okay." Blaine's smile and voice were so confident that Kurt couldn't help but feel encouraged.

"True…" Kurt said thinking it over as the pang in his chest lessened, "And with this storm, they wouldn't be able to text to tell me that."

"Exactly," Blaine said meeting his eyes and sending him a comforting smile.

Kurt let out a sigh of relief, his worst fears allayed, for now at least. "Right. Good." He lifted a hand to hurriedly wipe at his eyes before any tears could fall and Blaine kindly glanced away as if he didn't notice.

"Wanna check out that crate next?" Blaine said nodding towards a wooden crate in the back corner of the room. "I think we've had enough of these disgusting cardboard boxes."

"Sure."

Blaine grabbed the camera off the shelf it'd been recording from and found a place closer to the crate to set it up again.

"If there is anything dead in this I'm going back upstairs and risking the storm," Kurt said as he and Blaine looked for a way to open it. The crate was large enough to hold a body, a few in fact. But Kurt hurriedly wiped that picture from his mind, he was letting his imagination run wild.

Blaine laughed, "I'll be right behind you."

It seemed the crate opened on its side and together Blaine and Kurt tugged at the lid, until with a cracking of wood it finally snapped open so quickly that both of them toppled to the ground, the lid banging against the floor with a loud thump and several items spilling out.

"That wasn't what-" A starling rhythmic clicking noise cut of Blaine's remark and began to grow in volume.

Kurt watched in shock as Blaine sprang up from the floor a horrified expression on his face as he turned in circles like a dog chasing its tail trying to find the source of the sound which seemed to be coming  _from him_.

Kurt quickly scrambled to his feet, "The EMF detector. Blaine, your pocket!"

Blaine reached into his pocket pulling out the forgotten EMF reader and tossing it to Kurt as if it was venomous. The lights on it were flashing green as is ticked loudly alerting them of some kind of electromagnetic energy.

" _Shit_." Blaine breathed his hand clutching his chest. "Sorry, I forgot I was even carrying that." His breathing was fast, obviously still shaken. "I must have looked like an idiot."

Kurt's heart was pounding itself, he didn't understand what in this old dank basement could be setting the detector off.

"No, that was legitimately frightening," Kurt said handing the flashlight back to Blaine and moving the EMF detector up and down and back and forth trying to find out what it was reading. He stepped away from the crate as the clicking grew softer, the green lights down to three instead of five. He took another step back and the detector went silent, the lights back to blinking yellow.

Kurt looked at Blaine's whose expression must have reflected Kurt's own - brows raised, eyes wide. Kurt moved back to the crate and the EMF reader started its rhythmic clicking again all five green lights flashing.

"What in the world?" Kurt knelt down and started rummaging through the things that had toppled out of a crate. An old typewriter, stacks of papers, several books, pieces of what must have once been a phonograph, a small wooden chest with carved flowers over the surface and an old worn silk pork-pie hat that had miraculously stood up well to the test of time.

Nothing that would elicit such a reaction from an EMF detector.

Kurt reached for the wooden chest and the clacking of the EMF detector stopped as abruptly as it had started. The lights going back to yellow.

"That's... disconcerting," Blaine said and Kurt glanced over to see he'd knelt down beside him.

"Yes, it is." The EMF reader had sounded in previous investigations, but before Kurt had always been able to excuse it to probable electric wires in the vicinity or Rachel manipulating it for effect. This time he wasn't sure.

"Oh cool!" Blaine said reaching out for the hat and blowing off the dust before placing it in on his head. Kurt wouldn't have ever dreamed of putting something that potentially dirty on himself, but he couldn't help but smile as Blaine cocked the pork-pie hat and grinned at him.  _Damn it. He was hot._

"You're ridiculous," Kurt said but was smiling so hard his cheeks hurt.

"You think I'm stylish. You said so yourself."

Kurt chuckled and shook his head as he opened the wooden chest, about the size of a shoebox. Blaine scooted closer to him. As soon as the box was open Kurt could smell vanilla, and jasmine, and maybe some sandalwood. Kurt glanced up, actually, the sandalwood was from Blaine. He even smelled nice.

Inside the box was a pair of cufflinks, possibly gold, they looked old and valuable, as well as a leatherbound journal, and a small stack of hand-addressed letters tied with a blue ribbon. Kurt carefully slipped one of the letters out.

"Oh my god."

"What?"

Kurt grabbed Blaine's arm to direct the beam of his flashlight to the envelope. "It is addressed to James Doyle!"

Blaine stared at him blankly, before his eyes lit up with realization, " _The ghost_?"

"The man who was murdered in the 1950s!"

Blaine looked down at the letters in Kurt's hands, "No way."

There was a loud crash and more thunder from upstairs, so fierce that it made the walls of the basement quiver, Kurt could feel it in the ground. His stomach lurched, but Kurt was steadfastly not thinking of the storm right now. Instead, he sat down, leaning against the wooden crate (he'd would have to hand wash his pants later) and motioned for Blaine to sit beside him.

As Blaine had done all evening, he quickly and sweetly followed Kurt's lead shining the light of the flashlight so Kurt could read. It didn't take long at all for Kurt to realize he was holding a pile of love letters. Some sweet and affectionate, some erotic and detailed.

What was even more apparent was that these letters were  _absolutely not_  written by a woman. Kurt could feel himself blush all the way down his neck as he and Blaine read over a section detailing a passionate night of lovemaking, the word "cock" springing out frequently. Kurt quickly flipped to a different letter, feeling invasive reading something so private even over sixty years after it was written.

Blaine squirmed next to him but neither mentioned they just spent a moment reading what basically amounted to porn while trapped together in a possibly haunted basement.

"Henry Allerton," Blaine said quietly reading the name signed to each letter. "Do you think that is who James was meeting here at the  _Whispering Wolf_ when he was killed?"

"Yes, I do," Kurt responded. "A woman shot him, Mary Beth Wasom, I tried to find out what happened to her, but it seems the charges were dropped."

" _Murder charges_ were dropped?"

"Maybe this is why. If she shot her beau when she found out he left her for a man… it would explain why so little information was given in the newspapers and maybe why the law turned a blind eye. It was a different time, 1955."

"A worse time," Blaine said, his voice scratchy.

Kurt reached for Blaine's hand a squeezed it. "Yes, it was… but maybe, I don't know, maybe we are meant to tell James and Henry's story? It's starting to feel like more than chance that we are here reading this."

Blaine looked up from their clasped hands to Kurt's eyes, wetting his lips before glancing down to Kurt's lips, "Yeah… maybe."

Kurt's breath hitched as Blaine leaned forward, eyes flicking again to Kurt's lips. Blaine's golden eyes and red lips making Kurt's heart pound fast against his chest. Kurt closed his eyes when Blaine was a mere half an inch away, his whole body thrumming with anticipation wanting Blaine to kiss him so badly it almost hurt.

Kurt waited but the kiss didn't come, instead, he heard Blaine move and opened his eyes to find Blaine looking down and away from Kurt.

"Oh," Kurt let out a small, disappointed sigh. What had just happened?

"I uh… I need to tell you something." Blaine said looking back up. "Something you aren't going to want to hear."

"I'm listening."

"I… lied to you."

Kurt's stomach dropped, "What?" He let go of Blaine's hand and instinctively crossed his arms over his chest. Blaine winced.

"I lied about why I'm here." Blaine continued, "Cooper and I… we were never going to do our own ghost hunting show."

Kurt let that inforamtion wash over him for a moment, it  _had_ seemed like a flimsy excuse to be here the same time Kurt was, but Kurt had accepted it and moved on, it seemed now that the truth was something worse. Blaine was right, Kurt wasn't sure he wanted to hear this. "Okay... then why  _did_ you come?"

"Your first guess this evening was right," Blaine confessed having trouble keeping eye contact, "I came to sabotage you."

"What?  _Why_?" Kurt's his throat feeling tight, had Blaine just been messing with him this whole time? "All because of a stupid rivalry? Do you hate me that much?"

"No! I don't hate you. I've never hated you, even when we were… even before tonight. I just…"

"Tell me." Kurt demanded and didn't care that his voice come out icey, he couldn't imagine what Blaine was going to say, but he was prepared for the worst.

"It's my dad. I knew he wouldn't like the  _Ghost Investigators_  doing a show here, because… well, he has plans for this hotel."

"I don't understand." Kurt watched Blaine, trying to read him. He looked embarrassed and ashamed, eyes down, hands twisting in his lap.

"He and some business partners are planning a development out here, city planning data shows this area is going to become popular again and my father is trying to get rights to this land before the price skyrockets," Blaine took a deep breath and plunged on speaking quickly, his hands moving, his gaze finally lifting to Kurt intense as if begging him to understand. "It has been difficult because the  _Whispering Wolf_  is a historic building and it would have to be torn down, but he was getting close and we… we were worried that any attention brought to the building, even from an internet show, it would make things harder. My dad is posed to lose a lot of money if this deal doesn't go through."

Kurt was trying to take this all in. Blaine can here this evening to help some businessmen Kurt had never met because he thought an episode of  _Ghost Investigators_  could ruin a business deal? That wasn't  _so_ bad. "And  _how_ were you going to sabotage us?"

"I- I was going to try to scare you off?" Blaine said sheepishly. "Make noises and pretend to haunt the place so that you freaked out and left. It was Cooper's idea."

Even in the dark basement with only the pale light of Blaine's flashlight, Kurt could see Baline's cheeks redden in embarrassment. Kurt waited a moment in silence expecting anger or at least frustration to wash over him, but instead… he just burst out laughing.

"You… you  _what_? You were going to scare us away by pretending to be a  _ghost_?"

"It wasn't a well thought out plan." Blaine said looking at him in shock, Kurt's reaction apparently not what he was expecting.

Kurt just continued laughing, the whole idea of it so comical.

Blaine slowly started to smile, "I was even pounding furniture and moving things around upstairs before you found me."

Kurt laughed harder.

"Either you didn't hear me at all or are amazingly brave."

"Blaine.  _Blaine!_ " Kurt wiped a tear from his cheek, "You're a  _Scooby-Doo_  villain!"

Blaine's mouth feel open and he looked stunned for a minute until finally, his lips twitched with a smile. "And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for that meddling rodent that ran out and scared me half to death."

Kurt had to hold his stomach he was laughing so hard and soon Blaine was laughing along with him. Sitting together in the dark, the only sounds their laugher and the thunder and wind above them. It took a little while for Kurt to calm down, by time he had he was happy to find that both he and Blaine had slumped together as they laughed leaning on each other's shoulder.

"So, you're not mad at me?" Blaine asked from where his head was resting against Kurt's.

"No. How can I be? You've more than made up for it since then by sticking with me, and besides, you were trying to be a good son. In the most ridiculous way possible… your brother put you up to that? I need to met him."

"Yeah, I should know by now to never listen to him."

"What is your dad going to think about the fact that instead of stopping us you ended up making this episode with me?"

"Honestly? I think he'll just be glad I didn't get swept away in a tornado."

"Mmmm," Kurt sat up a little and turned to face Blaine. "I'd actually forgotten about the storm for a minute." Kurt said even though he could still hear thunder and the wind howling around the hotel, in fact, it sounded worse than ever. "Do you think the sound of the wind whipping around the hotel is why this place is called the  _Whispering Wolf_?"

Blaine listened for a moment and Kurt saw a shiver run through his body, "I bet it is." His brows furrowed together, "But is it me… or is that howling sound actually getting louder?"

Kurt tilted his head and paid attention, Blaine was right. The basement had muffled the sounds of the storm somewhat, but now the wind seemed to be growing with rage. Thunder boomed and the walls of the basement trembled. Kurt and Blaine stood as the noises rose in intensity and took a few steps closer to the staircase to try and determine what was going on upstairs.

The wind bellowed and the thunder roared and suddenly there was a powerful, stomach churning creaking, screeching noise that sounded like the hotel itself was twisting and breaking and splintering.

Kurt didn't even know who reached out first, but he and Blaine's hands were locked together as the roof of the basement started to quake.

" _The ceiling is going to collapse in on us_!" Kurt breathed, realization hitting him like a force. He felt Blaine hang onto him tighter.

"Kurt!" Blaine shouted over the rising din, "Turn around!"

Kurt turned to look behind his shoulder to where Blaine was pointing his flashlight at the crate they'd been rummaging through. That same undefinable white phantom was back and now hovering inside the crate.

"I have an idea!" Blaine called as he tugged Kurt towards the apparition. Most everything had spilled out of the crate but Blaine quickly started pushing everything out of the way, his hat tumbling off his head and his face fixed in concentration. The apparition disappeared, but Kurt hardly thought about that as he realized Blaine's plan, grabbed the nearby camera, and hurried to help him clear a space on the ground next to the crate.

"We're going to tip this over us and use it like a shield or mini shelter!" Blaine shouted over the increasing din.

Kurt nodded and gasped as the ceiling groaned and he looked up to find it bowed like a giant was trying to stomp through from the other side. The noise of the storm was so loud Kurt could hardly hear himself think. He knelt next to Blaine, knee to knee as they both reached up to hold onto the edge of the large wooden crate.

"Ready?"

"Wait!" Kurt called and scrambled to grab the small carved box and its contents before getting back in place, "Ready!"

Both he and Blaine heaved on the crate until it tipped over and fell with a sharp thud neatly into place, encapsulating Kurt and Blaine in what they could only hope was some kind of safety. The storm didn't sound like it was outside anymore, it sounded just on the other side of the wooden crate they were huddled under. The hairs on Kurt's arms stood on end with the electricity in the air, the EMF detector started clicking again but they didn't hear it over the turmoil of the storm.

This was it, in just a few short moments the tempest had reached its peak and they seemed to be in the center of it. Kurt honestly didn't know if they were going to come out the other side of it.

Baline's flashlight was still with them illuminating the small space. Blaine looked at Kurt with a scared but steady smile. It was now or never. Kurt wasn't going to die in this basement without having done the one thing he'd increasingly wanted to do all evening.

He reached out and fisted the front of Blaine's shirt pulling him towards him and crashing their lips together. Blaine seemed shocked at first, but then Kurt felt strong, careful hands on his neck and in his hair and Blaine's lips were parting and moving, kissing him back with intensity.

The storm raged on.


	6. The End of the Whispering Wolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your tremendous patience in waiting for this chapter, it is extra long to make up for it! Also, it is the last official chapter of the fic though I will have an epilogue to wrap somethings up.  
> A big, heartfelt thank you to starryeyedstanley for being my beta. And thanks to each of you who read, reblog, and leave comments. <3

Blaine held his breath, his mind spinning in an effort to understand what was happening. _How it came to be happening._ Because despite the fact that just hours before he would have sworn Kurt Hummel hated him - here Kurt was pulling him in for a kiss so fervent that it was close to short-circuiting Blaine's brain.

Blaine finally caught up with the situation enough to reach for Kurt, his hands traveling up Kurt's back with one moving to tangle in his hair. Blaine parted his lips and sighed as Kurt moved his own lips against him. The kiss was passionate and forceful, Kurt's body slammed against his own, but still, it was somehow sweet as Kurt pressed their lips together and then parted his own to deepen the kiss.

Blaine let out a soft moan, his body reacting to Kurt. He'd never been kissed like this, like Blaine was the answer Kurt had been searching for. He'd never felt so much in just a kiss. He held on for dear life as Kurt wrapped his arms around Blaine's shoulders and angled his head to give new dimensions to the kiss. Blaine was completely undone.

He was ready to lower himself to the ground and let Kurt completely unravel him, but with a quiet gasp, Kurt's lips were gone. The warmth of his body pressed against Blane's missing, leaving Blaine feeling cold and confused. Blaine licked his lips, which still tasted of Kurt, and slowly opened his eyes.

"What-what's wrong?" Blaine asked as, by the dim light of the flashlight, which he'd dropped and was now laying on the ground by their knees, he could see that Kurt's eyes were wide and frightened.

Kurt didn't have to answer Blaine's question as a sudden and powerful thud slammed the outside of the wooden crate brought everything back to focus.

For a brief moment in Kurt's embrace, Blaine had forgotten where they were, forgotten what was going on. Now everything was coming back to him, kneeling on the hard lid of the crate they were huddled in, deep in the basement of the Whispering Wolf, as the storm they'd been running from all night finally caught up to them.

" _Shit_ ," Kurt swore under his breath as something else hit the outside of the crate pushing it a few inches.

Kurt moved his hands to grip Blaine's arms and Blaine instinctively reached for Kurt's waist pulling him in closer.

"We might actually die down here," Kurt said with a nervous laugh as he looked at the side of the crate where more unseen objects were bombarding from the other side.

Blaine watched him closely, his smile tight, his eyes worried, and his grip on Blaine's arms almost painful. Blaine moved to bump his forehead against Kurt's. "Not going to happen," Blaine forced his voice to sound even and calm.

It wasn't that Blaine was unafraid, his heart was pounding against his chest and the muscles in his back were so tense it hurt, but Blaine had always been the kind of person to ignore their own needs when someone else was scared or hurt or upset.

Seeing headstrong and cocky Kurt actually show this level of fear made something protective and fierce stir inside of Blaine.

Kurt looked at him and quirked an eyebrow, evidently also trying to quell his nerves, "And how do you know that?"

"I think all evening we've had some kind of… guardian spirit watching over us. It's protected us so far."

Kurt looked at him for a long hard minute, even as the wind and gale of the storm grew louder and Blaine was half sure he felt water dripping down his back from a slit in the crate above him.

Finally, a sincere smile spread over Kurt's face, "You know I don't believe in ghost or spirits."

"Mmm," Blaine nodded sagely. "I know you are the expert here, but I can't think of any other explanation for that white apparition that keeps leading us to safety."

Kurt bit his lip and shook his head fondly even as something else crashed into their crate making it skid a few more inches and causing them both start.

"I'm sorry you are in danger Blaine," Kurt said quickly, his voice tense, "You should have never had to come out here tonight."

Blaine didn't know where the wind that was ramming things against their crate was coming from, he didn't know if the door to the stairs had flown off, or if part of the ceiling was gone. In the relative safety of their wooden crate he had no way of knowing how bad things were just on the other side. But he also knew that he was honestly glad to be here. Best case scenario neither he or Kurt would be in this kind of danger, but he was overwhelmingly grateful Kurt wasn't here on his own.

"You didn't force me to follow you out here, but I'm glad I did," Blaine said softly, they were close enough that hoped Kurt could hear him over the raging storm. He leaned in and very gently pressed his lips against Kurt's showing him what his words couldn't say.

There was a sharp cracking sound and then something large and heavy hit the side of the crate tossing it roughly across the floor, Kurt and Blaine were pulled apart and tossed like clothes in a dryer. The crate slammed against something hard and unforgiving, likely the cement wall of the basement, before coming to a standstill.

Blaine's shoulder and side of his head bounced off the wall of the crate and he moaned in pain, only to open his eyes to complete darkness. For a terrifying second, Blane thought he'd lost his vision until a startling flash of lightning momentarily lit the inside of the crate through the cracks in the wood.

"Oh god!" Blaine yelped now back in utter darkness, he felt around for the flashlight but froze when he heard Kurt groan. "Kurt!"

The bright, warm beam of Blaine's flashlight snapped on and Blaine could see that Kurt had found it before he had. The flashlight flickered, and Kurt hit it with his palm until it was steady again. He swung the light to focus on Blaine.

"Are you alright!" Kurt scrambled forward and reached out to smooth his free hand down Blaine's cheek and then cup the back of his neck.

"Yeah… yes. I think I am. Are you?"

Kurt nodded and then glanced at the crate, it was splitting apart at the corners and there was a long crack on the side. "Our little shelter isn't going to be able to take much more of this!" Kurt yelled over the storm even as lightning flashed again, and rainwater leaked in through the cracks, pooling on the ground and soaking through their clothing.

"It better, because I'm out of ideas!" Blaine shouted back as his heart constricted in his chest.

Kurt hadn't lifted his hand from the back of Baine's neck and Blaine found that he'd moved in to wrap an arm around Kurt. He couldn't believe that he was holding Kurt, a tiny part of his brain that wasn't focused on the storm felt at peace, like he'd been waiting to do this for a long time - not just this evening, but possibly for years. He foremost feeling was terror though, he and Kurt really might die down here and just when things between them seemed to be on the mend.

Kurt's hand ran up Blaine's neck to his cheek and he wiped under Blaine's eye with the pad of his thumb, "Don't cry or I'll cry."

Blaine shook his head but didn't say anything, his throat was too tight, even though he hadn't realized he'd been crying.

There was a creaking, snapping sound above them like the roof was twisting apart and Blaine and Kurt looked up at the top of their crate and then to each other with a knowing look.

This was it.

Kurt closed the couple of inches between them and wrapped Blaine securely in his arms, tucking his head against Blaine's shoulder and neck as Blaine held him back so close he could feel Kurt's too quick heartbeat. Whatever happened next, they were going to face it in each other's arms.

Thunder ricocheted in the air and lightning flashed, then just as the flashlight blinked out again leaving them in darkness a deafening crash ripped overhead and something weighty and huge pounded onto the roof of their little crate. The floor shook, the wood groaned, the crack in the side widened and rain and wind whipped through - all the while Kurt and Blaine clung to each other.

* * *

Kurt hugged Blaine closer as unseen objects kept pounding into their crate and was comforted by the feeling of Blaine's strong arms holding him just as tight. It felt like the end of the world, but at least Kurt wasn't facing it alone. No, he was facing it with a man who had been tugging at his heart strings for years and who he could finally admit he was crazy about. He hoped it wasn't too late to do something with that realization.

Kurt wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, clinging to each other and trembling in the dark. Finally, the pelting against the crate slowed and then stopped and Kurt felt like he could breathe again. He slowly pulled back but kept his arms around Blaine. It was too dark to see anything, but Kurt reached his fingertips up, brushing against the wood grain of their makeshift shelter. It had held, somehow this old wooden crate had held against all that had just collapsed on top of them.

"Kurt?" Blaine whispered, his breath on Kurt's neck and his voice shaky.

"I'm here." Which of course he was, they were still holding each other, but the words were more in surprise. He was here, they both were. Kurt could still hear thunder above them, but it seemed further away. Was the storm finally moving on?

Kurt eased himself out of Blaine's embrace but kept a hand touching him as he searched the floor with his other, his fingers glanced against the wooden box he'd saved, and the dead flashlight, before finding what he was looking for. His camera. He fiddled with it a moment, having to use both hands but smiling in the dark as Blaine wrapped his arms around him from behind, until he was finally able to flip it back on. He wasn't sure when it'd gone off or how much it had recorded, but for now, all he really needed was some light.

Kurt switched the light on and the screen, pushing record out of reflex as he turned in Blaine's arms and focused on his face. "Are you alive?" Kurt asked teasingly even as he scanned Blaine for any sign of injury.

"Yes." Blaine smiled, "Are you recording?"

Kurt shrugged, "As long as we lived through this - the show must go on!" Kurt voice was trembling a little from the built up adrenaline, but he hoped his smile looked confident.

Blaine's face broke into a grin as he let out a hearty laugh full of relief. The sounds of the storm were fading now, they seemed to have actually survived the worst of it.

"There's no one like you, Kurt Hummel."

Kurt felt a blush rise to his cheeks at the earnest expression on Blaine's face, he was looking at Kurt as if he couldn't look away. Which was a difficult expression to meet head on so Kurt flitted his eyes down to look at Blaine through his screen.

"Um… there's no one like you either. You had no reason to stick by my side through all of this."

"Well, it wasn't like I had anywhere else I could go."

Kurt's eyes flashed up to see Baine smiling at him mischievously. That was true, but they both knew Blaine had followed Kurt's lead all night.  
  
"Should we see if we can get out of this crate now? I think it safe."

"Yeah," Kurt nodded trying hard to suppress a grin that was twitching at his lips. He emotions were all over the place, relief paramount, but also a tint of giddiness. He had kissed Blaine! In a moment of blind panic and desire, he hadn't let himself think, or overthink, anything he'd just done what he so desperately wanted to do. He kissed Blaine and _Blaine kissed him back_.

Kurt wondered what it meant, where they went from here. Would they talk about it? Pretend it didn't happen? Kurt's stomach was full of butterflies, but he had to ignore all that right now. There were more pressing matters - there was no telling what they were going to find outside of this crate.

Kurt placed the camera on the ground as he and Blaine lifted above their hands and pushed, trying to lift the crate off of them. Kurt's heart thudded in fear when the crate wouldn't lift more than an inch. Blaine looked at him and worry shone from his eyes.

"Here, let me try this," Kurt said moving in the tight confines of the crate until he was on his back lying on the lid, knees bent and legs in the air so he could press the bottom of his boots against the top of the crate and push. The crate lifted a little, but it was heavy. Kurt stopped and looked at Blaine who was watching him with red cheeks and parted lips.

"Are you… _Blaine_ , are you checking me out right now?"

"What?" Blaine swallowed, "No… I mean…"

Kurt laughed, "Help me instead?"

"Right, of course."

Blaine pushed with his arms, his gloriously toned and very strong arms, and Kurt pushed with his legs, and with effort, they were able to open the crate and tip it on its side. Debris, dirt, and even a couple wooden slates immediately came toppling down, Kurt moved an arm to shield his face, but Blaine was quicker. Bending over Kurt with a hand on either side of his Kurt's shoulders, straddling and leaning over him while the rubble fell on his back instead of Kurt's venerable face.

"Blaine! Are you okay?" Kurt looked up at him - Blaine's face, his golden eyes and oh so kissable lips inches away.

"Yeah, good." Blaine grunted as his arms shook, but he remained in place making sure nothing fell on top of Kurt.

"Blaine," Kurt quickly moved so he could reach up and help ease the heaviest things off of Blaine's back and soon Blaine was able to slowly roll to the side as Kurt pushed the biggest pieces of debris away.

With a little work, they were both able to cautiously sit up, Kurt grabbed the camera again using the light to better see Blaine. "Are you sure you're alright?" Kurt asked his heart still pounding.

Blaine stretched his neck to one side and then the other letting it pop, but he smiled as he did, "Kurt, I'm fine."

Kurt sighed in relief, "That was very brave, and a little foolhardy, shielding me like that."

Blaine shrugged, "It was instinctual."

They stared at each other for a moment, Kurt's cheeks flushing and Blaine rubbing the back of his neck shyly until Kurt finally broke his gaze and sat up taller to slowly panned the light from the camera over the basement.

His stomach dropped when he saw the destruction around them. Wood planks, mortar, cement chunks, and scraps of building parts and broken furniture littered the basement. He swallowed deeply realizing the camera wasn't their only light source.

Both he and Blaine craned their necks up to see the ceiling of the basement had all but been ripped off, a gaping hole above allowed them to see the night sky, clouds dispersing and the moon and stars peeking through. What was once a hotel hallway above them was now just… open space.

"Oh my god," Blaine voice quivered, and Kurt turned to look at him, head lifted and the pale light of the moon illuminating his awestruck face. "Where's... the hotel?"

" _Gone_ ," Kurt breathed as he carefully stood, brushing dirt off his pants out of habit even though his outfit was wet and grimy and beyond help. He glanced over to where the staircase should be, and if it was still there he didn't think they could make it to it, large pieces of the ceiling laid in their path. "Do we… climb out?" Kurt asked looking at the rubble around them and the lack of ceiling above them.

Blaine stood next to him, his arm brushing against Kurt's. "I guess so? It could be dangerous though, we'll need to test what we are climbing on before putting our full weight on it."

Kurt agreed scooping up the wooden box, that he felt responsible for at this point, and carefully looking for the best way to get out of the basement. It took them a little while, poking through the rubbage to find good footing, it was like hiking up a mountain that shifted under your feet. Blaine would slip, and Kurt would reach for him and Kurt would stumble, and Blaine would grab his arm as they helped each other up and out.

They were grateful to find a concrete foundation at the edge of the hole they were climbing out of, steady enough that once they could pull themselves out of the basement and didn't feel like they were going to collapse back down again. They eventually made their way to the ground level of the _Whispering Wolf_ … or what was left of it.

Parts of the building were still erect, support beams, a half wall or two, on the far side away from where Kurt and Blaine stood, it even seemed a corner of the second floor was still there, and all around them was the creaking, groaning skeletal remains of an old building that had been mostly flattened by the storm.

Kurt felt sick to his stomach. _How had they survived this?_

"Kurt?" Blaine's gentle voice called from beside him as he placed a tender hand on his arm, "Kurt?"

Kurt felt like he was going to cry, or scream, or throw up. The realization of how bad the storm - tornado - actually was, and the damage it had wreaked, felt like running into a brick wall.

"Kurt," Blaine called again, and he was lifting Kurt's arm, Kurt looked down to see Blaine was moving the camera he was gripping. "Record this. You know... the show must go on."

Kurt looked at Blaine, his curly hair messy with tiny pieces of dust and dirt in it, and his clothing wet and ruined, but there was an encouraging smile on his face. Blaine couldn't have said anything better, it was exactly what Kurt needed to hear.

"Right. Or course." He lifted the camera and turned slowly in a circle taking in the full awe of the wreckage around them.

"I guess your dad doesn't need to worry about this episode of _Ghost Investigators_ saving the _Whispering Wolf_." Kurt said, and Blaine was quite for a moment before he burst out laughing.

Kurt looked at him in surprise, the sudden sound of laughter startling against the eerier calm the storm had left behind. "Is it weird that I kind of feel bad about that?"

Blaine kept laughing.

Kurt's lips twitched, and he was soon giggling along with him, "I mean if I'd waited one more night to come out here it would have been a moot point!"

The ground shifted as a long beam of wood that had been teetering over the open mouth to the basement lost its grip and toppled into the black hole. Kurt and Blaine's laughter was cut short as they reached for each other finding themselves clasped in each other's arms.

"Um… maybe it would be smart to move away from here?" Kurt suggested looking into Blaine's amber eyes.

Blaine nodded and they carefully made their way through the wreckage until they reached the parking lot outside of the hotel.

"The street lamp is still here!" Blaine called, "And working! How in the world?"

The lone street lamp was still glowing, illuminating a warm circle of light in the dark night.

"My dad's truck was parked right there." Kurt pointed and looked around, there was no sign of the truck now.  
"Oh god." Blaine turned and jogged around the one corner of the building that was still almost standing, Kurt watched him run his hands worriedly through his hair and then race back to him.

"Yeah, my car is MIA as well."

"Great." Kurt just smiled and shook his head, it was hard to be upset at losing their vehicles when really, they shouldn't have survived this at all. Kurt plopped down, sitting on the ground, no longer caring about his clothes, and leaned his back against the base of the lamppost.

He dug his phone out of his pocket and checked it for service. Still nothing.

Blaine did the same thing, but their phones weren't working out here. 

"Now what?" Blaine asked as he joined Kurt on the ground shoulder to shoulder.

"I guess we wait for help to arrive? Like you said earlier, people know we're out here."

Kurt watched Blaine's face carefully as he nodded. He wanted to lean in a place a kiss to the smile line near his lips, but he wasn't sure that was appropriate. Where did they stand now? The kiss in the basement was one of desperation. Kurt didn't know what Blaine thought of it. Would they even be friends after this? Or had they been getting along only out of necessity?

"I… hope that…" Kurt started, and Blaine lifted his brows, listening, "I hope we're friends now."

" _What?_ "

"I mean, I don't know why it took us years to find out we actually really get along."

"I know why. We were too busy being dumb and competitive to stop and think about it."

"And I was awful to you," Kurt added. "You remember that first time we met, when you came to McKinley with the Warblers to preform?"

"And you called us 'Tom Thumb and the Pips' and told me we sounded like we practiced harmonies with an untuned piano?"

Kurt winced, "God, I knew I was mean…"

"Yeah, I remember that Kurt," Blaine said with a smile, he didn't seem upset about it.

"I'm sorry." Kurt looked Blaine in the eyes, "I didn't even mean what I said, and I'm so sorry my insults sent us down a path of bickering with each other for years."

"Our rivalry was never one-sided, Kurt." Blaine said looking away and out across the empty parking lot, "You… flustered me, and not many people do. I took that as a challenge, and I know I purposefully agitated you throughout the years. It's just that you were… are… so gorgeous and confident and I didn't know how to make you like me so I just… let us fight instead." Blaine expression was bewildered as he confessed this, as if maybe this was the first time he'd put these thoughts together.

"You keep calling me gorgeous," Kurt smiled, his heart beating heavily in his chest.

Blaine looked back at him with a slight blush, "You continue to be gorgeous."

Kurt shook his head in disbelief, "That's why I was so mean when we first met. I had just recently come out as gay, and even my friends gave me a hard time about having crushes, mainly on straight boys. When I saw you perform that first time I… I instantly had a crush." Kurt could feel his cheeks heat up. "You were like a teenage heartthrob, and one of my friends could tell I was… smitten." Kurt sighed, "She teased me and said the Warblers were the enemy and next thing I knew I was insulting you." Kurt bit his lip not meeting Blaine's eyes, feeling ashamed of his past self.

"So…" Blaine said and nudged Kurt until he looked up again, "What you're saying is, we are both idiots?"

"I guess so." Kurt laughed. Blaine's bright expression putting him at ease, "And now I just don't want things to go back to how they were. I know tonight has been… tense… to say the least," Kurt's heart was in his throat, hoping he got this out right, needing Blaine to understand how much it would hurt for them to go back to their old ways, or worse just to faded from each other's lives all together after this, "But I really hope… I hope that it wasn't just the danger that kept us... friendly."

"Friendly?" Blaine said, turning towards him with a smile that made his eyes crinkle, "Is that what you'd call that kiss we shared? _Friendly_?"

"Shut up, Anderson," Kurt laughed moving to smack Blaine's arm, but ending up holding onto it instead.

"Make me," Blane's eyes danced, and Kurt only had to move half the distance between them because Blaine was moving too, reaching out to cup Kurt's face with both hands and bring their lips together.

The kiss was gentler than the fierce, fear-fueled kissed they'd shared in the basement. Blaine's hands on Kurt's face holding him tenderly as he angled his lips to fit perfectly against Kurt's. Kurt brought his arms up to loop around Blaine's neck and tug him in closer as their lips moved. With a breathy sigh, Kurt parted his lips a little more and a shiver ran down his spine at the feel of Blaine's tongue as it softly slid against Kurt's own.

Kurt moaned into the kiss, which he would have found embarrassing, but Blaine seemed to like it and pressed in closer, his hand trailing back to tangle in Kurt's hair. Kurt chuckled to himself thinking of the state his hair must be in at this point, but with Blaine's mouth working against his own, and their bodies so close the chill of the night air was all but forgotten, Kurt couldn't really care about how he looked.

Blaine broke away for breath but didn't move his head back, Kurt leaned their foreheads together, his mind dizzy and his body tingling. He scooted back just enough so that Blaine couldn't feel the tell-tell signs of arousal in his pants, though Blaine seemed to be in the same condition. Kurt was weighing the pros and cons of getting off in an abandoned parking lot. It was totally against his normal behavior, but Blaine was making it so very tempting.

"It wasn't just the danger," Blaine said pressing short kisses along Kurt's jaw that made Kurt's toes curl.

"Wh-what?"

"It wasn't just the danger that made me friendly," Blaine huffed out a laugh at the word, his breath tickling Kurt's neck. "It was you."

Part of Kurt wanted to pull back and look Blaine in the eyes, but Blaine's unfairly talented lips were making their way down Kurt's neck now and Kurt could barely think.

"You're incredible Kurt, you always have been. I think…" Blaine pulled away and Kurt let out a sigh at the loss of contact. Blaine's hazel eyes were looking into Kurt's by the dim light of the streetlamp and the intensity in Blaine's gaze made Kurt's stomach do flip-flops. "I think," Blaine continued, "That I've wanted this for a long time and that I might have made life hard for you…. Because, I wanted you and didn't think you could ever feel the same way.

"Yeah…" Kurt breathed, smiling a little, "We were definitely both idiots."

Blaine grinned, and Kurt swooped in to kiss him again, because even after the fear, uncertainty, and adventure of the night it turned out nothing was better than kissing Blaine Anderson.

Kurt lost track of time, curled against Blaine and sitting on the ground in a dark and desolate parking lot next to the dilapidated ruins of the _Whispering Wolf_. He was again considering moving his hips forward to rut against Blaine's when his mind interrupted him alerting him to some approaching sound.

"What's that?" Kurt asked even as Blaine continued to kiss his jaw up to his ear, Kurt's eyes fluttered closed but only for a moment. There was definitely a sound, and it was getting closer. "Blaine, someone is coming."

Blaine pulled back again and even by the meager light of the streetlamp Kurt could see his eyes were dilated, his cheeks were rosy, and his lips kiss swollen. Kurt had to physically force himself to pull away from such an alluring sight.

"A car?" Kurt asked, and Blaine blinked like he was coming out of a trance and looked in the direction of the sound.

Kurt stood, holding his hand out for Blaine and helping him to his feet as what was now the unmistakable sound of a car coming up the road drew their attention.

Soon a red BMW speed into sight, headlights glaring against the relative darkness Kurt's eyes had adjusted to. Its engine roared as the car slid into the parking lot, skidding towards Kurt and Blaine before coming to an abrupt halt. The passenger door was flung open and a tall, dark-haired man practically tumbled out of the car.

"Blaine!" The man shouted and sprinted towards them.

Kurt had just enough time to see that he was young, maybe in his early thirties, and handsome, before he swooped Blaine up in an all-encompassing embrace.

"Oh my god, oh my god." The man gushed.

Kurt realized this must be Cooper, Blaine's brother, in just enough time to keep him from feeling jealous.

"You're in one piece!" Cooper exclaimed, "I thought I'd killed you!"

"I'm alive and well," Blaine said detangling himself from Cooper's arms with a smile. "As you can see."

"Aw, Squirt!" Cooper messed Blaine's hair making him scowl. "I was so scared!"

Blaine hurriedly tried to tame his curls and Kurt didn't have the heart to tell him they'd been unruly for quite some time now and were obviously far beyond the help of Blaine's fingers raking through them.

"What do you mean you thought you'd killed him?" Kurt asked, and Cooper turned to him as if noticing Kurt for the first time.

"I sent him out here on his own and then I was out on the town when we all heard about the tornado and I thought…" His face looked pained for a second, but then quickly morphed into a winning smile. "You must be Kurt Hummel," He held out his hand to shake, "I've heard _a lot_ about you over the years."

Blaine groaned, and Kurt laughed, "I have to thank you for sending him here, I would have been on my own otherwise."

They were again interrupted by the sound of a vehicle approaching, this time it was Finn's truck which pulled up next to Cooper's car and three people hurriedly exited. Kurt's eyes widened when he saw Finn, Rachel and his father.

Relief washed over Kurt, Finn and Rachel had some explaining to do, but right then Kurt could almost cry knowing they were okay. And his dad… oh god, Burt's face was pinched and pale with worry and Kurt didn't waste a second before running to him and hugging him.

"I'm fine Dad. I'm fine. Not a scratch on me."

" _Kurt_." Burt's voice was rough as he held his son. Kurt and he could hear Rachel frantically crying in the background.

"We thought you were dead!" She wailed.

"Geez, Kurt," Finn's voice was low and tight, "What happened here?"

Kurt turned just enough to see the ghostly remains of the _Whispering Wolf_. What wasn't completely flattened and flung around the surrounding area was creaking and teetering ready to fall. The six of them stood in silence for a moment taking it the total destruction before them.

"I guess this is good news for Dad." Cooper was the first to speak and Kurt couldn't hold in his chuckle. Which soon turned into a full-fledged laugh until both he and Blaine were laughing. Holding their stomachs and cracking up. All the tension, and worry, and fear from the evening washing out of them.

"Kurt?" It was Burt's voice that finally drew him back to reality, "You sure you're okay?"

Kurt wiped an eye and nodded, "Yeah. I think so."

Burt clapped his hand on Kurt's shoulder, "Where's my truck, bud?"

"I don't know dad, everything is just… gone."

Burt's face paled again, but he shook his head and squeezed Kurt's shoulder as he started to steer him to the truck, "Let's get you away from here."

Kurt suddenly felt exhausted and he realized he and Blaine had been running around all night as the first blush of sunlight started to rise on the horizon. He glanced back at Blaine who was looking at him with a soft smile until his eyebrows lifted.

"Wait!" Blaine turned and jogged back to the streetlamp, he returned with the camera and the wooden box they'd found. "Don't forget these." He also slipped off the pack Kurt had given him returning the little bit of equipment that had survived the storm.

" _Oh_. Oh my god," Rachel gasped grabbing the camera from Kurt. "Please tell me you got some of this on tape."

Kurt rolled his eyes, "Of course I did."

"Kurt! That is so exciting! I'm going to watch in on the way back to Lima!"

Kurt shook his head stealing the camera back and thinking of his and Blaine's kiss down in the basement. He had no idea what he'd gotten on film that evening, but he knew no one was going to watch it before he did. "I think I've earned the first skim through."

"And I think I've earned the right to get my son back home safe and sound," Burt spoke up, "You two are too much alike, caring about footage at a time like this!" Kurt squeezed his dad's hand hating that he'd worried him.

"Come on Blaine," Cooper spoke up, "I'll get you home too. You look dead on your feet."

Kurt took a good look at Blaine dirty, disheveled, and seemingly exhausted - Kurt could only imagine how he looked himself.

He rushed to Blaine and wrapped him in his arms, heart skipping a beat when Blaine held him back, "I'll see you soon. Won't I?"

"Count on it," Blaine assured him as they broke apart and were ushered into separate cars by their loving, but overprotective family members.

Kurt sat in front with his dad. Rachel and Finn behind him.

"What in the world was Blaine _Stick-Up-His-Ass_ Anderson doing here?" Rachel asked as soon as the truck doors were closed, and Burt started pulling out of the parking lot.

"Don't you hate that guy?" Finn added.

Kurt smiled, biting his lip as he glanced at the BMW taking Blaine away. "No… no, I don't. Not at all." He couldn't wait to see Blaine again.

He craned his neck to take one last look at what was once the _Whispering Wolf_ , the pink-gold sun rising behind it and, if it wasn't his imagination, a pale wisp of white floating out of the rubble and up to the clear morning sky.


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! This is it the last installment of this little fic. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed sharing it with you. Thank you for sticking with me through this ride!

The Hummel-Hudson home had a high-speed computer, several screens, and earphones in the basement where Kurt, Finn, and Rachel could sit and watch footage from their latest _Ghost Investigators_ shoot. They would cut and edit the footage, listen for any strange sounds they should highlight, and see if there were shadows or what Rachel called “anomalies” they could say might be a spirit. Generally, editing was a chance to do their best to make it their exploration into a ghost investigation and not just three people walking around an old building and acting crazy.   
  
Working on the _Whispering Wolf_ episode was completely different.   
  
Kurt insisted that he watch the footage on his own the first time through. He sat alone, lights off, and knees tucked up to his ching as scenes from the _Whispering Wolf_ flash by -- it was a surreal feeling. He wanted to watch it all again to really analyze everything that happened, but neither Rachel or Finn were particularly patient people and they both eventually crept downstairs and crowded around the desk.   
  
“What is _that_ !” Finn stuck a finger out to point at one of the screens before Kurt swatted his hand away.   
  
“No fingers on the screen, Finn!”   
  
“Yeah, okay but _what is_ that?”   
  
“Seriously Kurt, did you see something that night?” Rachel chimed in pulling her chair so close to Kurt he was sure she was trying to push him out of the way. He didn’t give up an inch of ground. Kurt knew what they were talking about, but didn’t know how to answer.   
  
Finn reached across Kurt to hit the spacebar and pause the video. It stopped on the strange white apparition the first time Kurt and Blaine had seen it in the dining room before the storm had reached its peak. It was very blurry and hard to make out - Kurt remembered it being much clearer in person - but there was unmistakenly _something_ caught on screen.   
  
“I don’t know what it is,” Kurt admitted with a sigh knowing his time to watch and rewatch the footage alone was over.   
  
It was a weird thing to watch the evening unfold on camera, it shed a new light on everything that had happened. Most importantly it gave him time to really watch Bailine. Which was a lovely thing to do. Kurt smiled every time he saw Blaine’s handsome face on screen as Rachel speed through the footage looking for the apparition again. She and Finn got more excited every time they saw it.   
  
“So Kurt…” Rachel spoke up after about an hour of going over the film. “That Blaine Anderson. I always thought he didn’t like you. And knowing he was there to foil our evening seems to confirm that but…” She pressed pause and the screen froze on a shot of Blaine as he turned to look at Kurt. His lips were tipped in a smile and his eyes sparkling. “That expression on his face is _not_ the kind of expression you’d expect from a rival.”   
  
“Yeah, he’s basically in love with you in every shot,” Finn added bluntly.   
  
“ _Oh god_ ,” Kurt moaned and held his face in his hands, but he couldn't keep from smiling.   
  
Kurt had noticed Blaine’s apparent besotted gaze, he had rewound several key examples while watching on his own. It made his stomach flip pleasantly and his skin feel too warm.   
  
“Kurt? Explain.” Rachel demanded.   
  
“I… it was. Blaine isn’t what we, what I, thought he was.”   
  
“Mmmhmm.” Rachel nodding knowingly and he didn’t inquire what she was assuming, she was probably right.   
  
They continued to watch and Kurt continued to blush. The footage of him wasn’t any better than Blaine’s. He had no idea he’d spent most of the night grinning like a lovelorn teenager at Blaine. In fact, even with the building storm and the weird apparition, the most noticeable thing in the film from the _Whispering Wolf_ were Kurt and Blaine's increasingly enamored behavior towards each other.   
  
It was sweet and romantic and made Kurt fall even harder for Blaine. It was also mortifying.   
  
Carole came down a few hours in and brought them dinner and the three of them were up into the early hours of the morning pouring over the footage and talking about how to format the episode.   
  
They were in disagreement on what to focus on.   
  
“Trust me Finn, the scariest part of the night was the tornado, _it could have killed us_ .”   
  
“But Kurt! You got a real live ghost on camera!”   
  
Kurt pinched the bridge of his nose, not knowing if he should point out _again_ that ghost weren’t real or the fact that if they were they wouldn’t be _alive_ .   
  
“What do you think?” Finn asked Rachel who had been uncharacteristically quiet. “The show is called _Ghost Investigators_ , not _Storm Chasers_ .”   
  
“I’m not saying cut out the _apparition_ _!_ ” Kurt’s hands flew to his hair in frustration, “I’m just saying, as the person who was actually there that evening, the most compelling thing going on was that storm!”   
  
“Your both wrong,” Rachel answered. Finn and Kurt turned to Rachel to find her sitting primly with her arms crossed over her chest and a smug smile on her lips. Kurt never like it when she had that look on her face, it rarely boded well for him.   
  
She leaned forward, “Despite the fact that you said we can’t use _the kiss_ ,” she said glaring at a furiously blushing Kurt. “I have an idea.”   
  
Kurt had watched that kiss in the basement countless time already, it was a wonderful and heavy feeling to have something so passionate and intimate caught on tape. Not to mention he would always have a record of his first kiss with Blaine. He heart pounded at the thought.   
  
He was less than thrilled when Finn and Rachel saw it, they were never going to let him hear the end of it. Though, they had agreed that they wouldn’t air “the kiss” without Kurt’s permission, which he wasn’t about to give.   
  
Rachel seemed to have her own plans as she scrolled through the footage to find to the part she wanted. “This,” She said as she pressed play, “This is our story.”   
  
The screen showed the dark interior of the _Whispering Wolf’s_ basement, before its impending destruction, the light of the camera illuminated a small area and it must have been one of the times they had it propped up on a shelf because both Blaine and Kurt were on screen.

Kurt bit his lip to suppress his smile at the sight of Blaine chasing him and then pinning him against a bookshelf. Kurt leaned close to the computer, as on screen, Blaine leaned into Kurt’s space -- whispering so the camera barely picked out his voice.  
  
Rachel paused the video on a shot of Blaine inches away from Kurt, his body angled towards him and their eyes locked.   
  
Kurt cleared his throat, had it gotten really hot suddenly?   
  
Finn just smirked at him.   
  
“This is not another ghost story, Kurt,” Rachel dramatically waved a hand at the screen, “It’s a love story.”   
  
“I don’t know that I’m in love-” Kurt started but Rachel barreled over him just as he was thinking, _I’m not in love yet_ , but god, he was well on his way.   
  
“Not just a love story between you and Blaine, but between Henry and James over sixty years ago. _That’s_ the narrative. Ghost and storms, of course - but romance paramount. This is going to be our best episode ever! And I’m not even in it!” She flopped back down in her chair sweeping her long dark hair behind her and pouting.   
  
“She’s right,” Finn spoke up and Kurt knew she was.   
  
“Okay,” Kurt gave in with a sigh, “But if we are going to focus on Blaine and me we need to run it by him first.”   
  
“Of course, he can be here for the whole editing process, plus... that means you get to spend more time with him.” Finn winked and nudged him.   
  
Kurt rolled his eyes, but couldn’t deny that he was excited about the prospect. He glanced back at his and Blaine's figures on the screen and covered his smile with a hand. Yeah, extremely excited. 

* * *

Blaine arrived at Kurt’s home bouncing on his toes and his heart fluttering. He hadn’t see Kurt in a full twenty-four hours since leaving the _Whispering Wolf_ and it was killing him.   
  
Kurt flung open the front door with a grin on his face, “Blaine!”   
  
One glance at Kurt’s dazzling face, his cheeks rosy and his blue eyes dancing, and all Blaine could do was rush forward and wrap him in a hug. “Hi.” He said face nuzzled against Kurt’s neck.   
  
Kurt laughed and hugged him back. “Hi.”   
  
They stood like that for a moment before Rachel loudly cleared her throat behind them. He turned to see Rachel and Finn grinning at him.   
  
They all ended up in the basement where Blaine was let in on the plan they had for the _Whispering Wolf_ episode. He, of course, agreed to it, Kurt liked the idea and besides, he would say yes to any excuse to spend more time with him.   
  
Blaine loved every moment helping Kurt, Rachel, and Finn cut together the _Whispering Wolf_ footage. They ended up splitting the investigation into two episodes, there was so much going on that they didn’t want to cut out too much.   
  
Finn and Rachel would come and go and over the next few days and Blaine and Kurt did the bulk of the work editing this particular investigation. Blaine watched the tape with parted lips and flushing cheeks. It was apparent he was smitten with Kurt from the start, even before his mind had caught up with things. “Oh god, I look like an idiot.”   
  
“You look adorable,” Kurt said bumping his shoulder and looking at him fondly. The few times Kurt was caught on screen clearly checking Blaine out balanced things out and helped Blaine not feel like such a fool. Or at least, they were both fools together.   
  
Every so often they would get distracted and end up on the sofa in the basement, bodies close, and lips pressed against one another. Kissing Kurt Hummel made Blaine’s heart race and his skin sing. It was the best thing in the whole world.   
  
Rachel or Finn came down to help every so often so they never got as much time alone as they wanted. It was okay, they were focused on the episode right now, there would be time later for just him and Kurt --  because there was no way he was letting Kurt out of his life now that he knew what it was like to be with him.   
  
Blaine found he really liked Finn and Rachel, he’d never much cared for them in the past, but that was because they were Kurt’s friends and he thought Kurt hated him. Now, he found Finn was sweet and funny... and Rachel, well Rachel was _intense_ , but she reminded him a little of Kurt and when she invited him to a karaoke night their friendship was sealed.   
  
He was sitting with Kurt on the sofa in the basement one evening three days into editing. Their legs were stretched across the couch and ankles tangled as they read over the love letters from the box they’d found.   
  
“We could use this part,” Kurt said lifting up a letter in his hands. They had read most of the letters by now, Henry’s words to James were both beautiful and hunting considering they knew how things had ended for them. Still, if they were going to tell Henry and James’ story they wanted to include some of Henry’s words.   
  
Kurt cleared his throat and started to read, “Every thought of you fills my heart with longing.” Kurt’s eyes flitted up to Blaine and down again, “Your eyes, your laugh, your smile, they are my constant meditation day and night. My heart feels more for you than I ever thought it could know.”   
  
Blaine ducked his head not able to meet Kurt’s eyes. Henry’s words summed up how he felt about Kurt, but he knew it was too early in their relationship to say anything like that -- yet. “Yeah, that’s good. You should do the voice over for that part.”   
  
Using the letters was a mutual decision Kurt and Blaine made, they felt both men deserved to have their story told, to have people know that they had loved each other, and that is wasn’t wrong, or sinful, even if that is what had been believed at the time. Blaine and Kurt wanted to focus on the love, not the tragedy, as much as they could.   
  
They ended up keeping most of the letters to themselves. It didn’t matter that these men had been in love over half a century ago, some things felt private, scared, not for mass consumption. Like the screen time of Kurt and Blaine’s first kiss, trapped in the basement and huddled in that old crate. That was just for them.   
  
It took a full week of Blaine spending all his free time with Kurt, something he was absolutely _not_ complaining about, to get both _Whispering Wolf_ episodes of _Ghost Investigators_ ready.   
  
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Kurt sat rimrod straight in his chair by the computer a week later, as the four of them gathered around, ready to post the first episode online, “I feel like I’m putting my private life right out there for the whole world to see.”   
  
“That’s what happens when you make out on camera!” Rachel quipped.   
  
“Hey! We aren’t even using that.”   
  
Blaine laughed and ducked in to press a kiss against Kurt’s cheek, “It will be okay.” He assured him as Kurt clicked the button and posted the episode online.   
  
Kurt walked Blaine to his rental car that evening, he was still waiting for the insurance company to pay for his car that had been blown away and Kurt was in a similar predicament. Their hands were clasped and swinging between them. “So, now that editing is done and the first episode is posted I guess we won’t be spending so much time together.” Kurt teased.   
  
“Humm…” Blaine leaned against the car, hand still held in Kurt’s “You’re right. I can’t think of a single reason to spend time with you now.”   
  
“That’s too bad really. You’re a pretty good editor.”   
  
“I guess the good times are over now,” Blaine’s could feel his smile growing to match Kurt’s own.   
  
“Goodbye then, Anderson,” Kurt said in mock seriousness.   
  
“Goodbye, Hummel.” Blaine leaned in to give Kurt a soft, but lingering kiss to the lips, “See you tomorrow morning for coffee?”   
  
“ _Obviously_ .”   
  
Blaine grinned all the way home, a week after that fateful night at the _Whispering Wolf_ and he still couldn't believe he and Kurt were together. Every day he woke up and kicked his feet out in pure happiness thinking of Kurt.   
  
Between spending time with Kurt, editing the _Ghost Investigators_ episodes, and his college courses,  Blaine had had very little free time. What he did have he’d used thinking about the apparition they’d seen that evening.  He was obsessed with the notion that the misty apparition at the _Whispering Wolf_ was the spirit of James Doyle somehow lingering and protecting, while also leading them to the letters.   
  
It was the angle they’d taken in the episodes. Despite Kurt’s refusal to believe the theory that the apparition was James, or even a ghost at all. Kurt just shook his head and fondly kissed Blaine's hand agreeing it was a perfect story for the episodes.   
  
Blaine was lost in thoughts of love letters and friendly ghosts and Kurt’s perfectly coiffed hair as he sat across from him at the Lima Bean.   
  
“I thought we’d go back out to the _Whispering Wolf_ this morning,” Kurt said pulling Blaine out of his musings.   
  
“Really?”   
  
“I mean, you said that demolition crews would be out there in the next few weeks to finish the job the tornado started and I… I just want to see it one last time.”   
  
“For closure?”   
  
Kurt shrugged and took a sip of his non-fat mocha, “I guess.”   
  
“I’d love to do that.”   
  
They dove together to the remains of the _Whispering Wolf_ pulling into the parking lot and parking by the streetlamp they had made out underneath over a week ago.   
  
In the stark morning light, what little was left of the _Whispering Wolf_ was more overwhelming than Blaine remembered. A chill ran up his spine thinking again how lucky he and Kurt were to have walked out of that building alive. And together.   
  
Kurt was quiet as they walked around the border of the now dilapidated hotel. “You okay?” Blaine asked squeezing his hand.   
  
“I want to tell you something, but I don’t want you to read too much into it.”   
  
“Okay…”   
  
“When we were leaving that morning, after the storm, I looked out the window and I saw that white floaty… _thing,_ right there.” Kurt pointed to the middle of the hotel and the hole in the ground that lead to the basement. “It drifted up until it got lost in the clouds and I couldn’t see it anymore.” Blaine watched Kurt as he arched his long neck and tilted his lovely face to the sky.     
  
“I… that’s amazing Kurt.” Blaine felt awestruck, by the news and by Kurt’s beauty, “And you _still_ don’t believe in ghost?”   
  
Kurt laughed and shook his head, “Sorry, still a skeptic, but since you are convinced it was James helping us out all evening I thought you’d want to know. If he was stuck here, and I’m not saying I believe that, but if he was, I don’t think he is anymore.”   
  
Blaine looked up to the clear morning sky and then back down to Kurt, “Thank you, Kurt.”   
  
Kurt smiled coyly and bit his lip, “Anything to make you smile like that.”   
  
Blaine laughed and swooped in to kiss him, only yards away from where they’d shared their first kiss. They walked back to the rental car together, arms linked.   
  
“You know, Finn thinks he has found the next place to tape _Ghost Investigators_ .” Kurt said, “There is an old hospital a couple hours from here that has a wing that’s been shut down and is supposedly haunted.”   
  
“A haunted hospital? Creepy.” Blaine shivered, but felt excited at the thought, “Sounds like it will be a great episode for you.”   
  
“Actually, I was thinking. If you had time… and you wanted to…” Kurt stopped outside of the car.   
  
“Kurt?”

  
“What if you joined us? We could be a four-person investigation team.”   
  
Blaine’s mouth fell open, he’d been a guest star in their show by default because he’d been there when Rachel and Finn were absent, but he never expected to actually be invited to come back.   
  
“Or not. Maybe you don’t want to after almost dying last episode,” Kurt added nervously.   
  
“What!? _Are you kidding?_ I want to! I really, really want to.”   
  
Kurt’s face broke into a grin, “Really?”   
  
“Yes! Are you sure Finn and Rachel won’t mind?”   
  
“I already talked to them, and since the first episode of the _Whispering Wolf_ has already received over _twice_ as many views as any of our other episodes and our fans are clamoring for the next installment, they both thought you’d be an asset to the team.”   
  
“Kurt! This is going to be amazing!”   
  
“Besides,” Kurt said reaching out for Blaine’s coat and pulling him in by the lapels, “If Rachel gets to ghost hunt with her boyfriend, I should get to ghost hunt with mine.”   
  
“ _Boyfriend_ ?” Blaine asked, his heart leaping in his chest and his face only inches away from Kurt.   
  
“Yes, Blaine, boyfriend. How does that sound to you?”   
  
Blaine nodded and smiled as he leaned in for the kiss, “That sounds perfect.” 


End file.
